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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



«^jqt-^K §mm¥ $*-■—■ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



WORLD OF WONDERS SERIES 



V 



A 



WORLD OF WONDERS SERIES. 



1. Wonders of Marine Life. 95 Illustrations. 132 pages. 

2. Curiosities of Vegetable Life. 57 Illustrations. 80 pages. 

3. Curiosities of the Insect and Reptile World. 57 Illus- 

trations. 92 pages. 

4. Marvels of Bird and Beast Life. 65 Illustrations. 128 

pages. 

5. Phenomenal Forces of Nature. 49 Illustrations. 96 pages. 

8vo. Cloth. Each, 60 cents. 



OTHER INTERESTING WORKS ON KINDRED SUBJECTS. 

Life and her Children. Glimpses of Animal Life, from the 
Amoeba to the Insects. By Arabella B. Buckley. With 
upward of 100 Illustrations. $1.50. 

The Fairy-Land of Science. By Arabella B. Buckley. With 
numerous Illustrations. $1.50. 

Along the Florida Reef. The story of camping and fishing 
adventures in company with a naturalist in Florida. By 
C. F. Holder. Illustrated. $1.50. 

Ocean Wonders. A Companion for the Seaside. By W. E. 
Damon. This volume gives reliable information in regard to 
the living objects of our own seacoast, and incidentally of 
other marine animals. 75 cents. 

The Multitudinous Seas. By S. G. W. Benjamin. " Multitu- 
dinous Seas" is an eminently picturesque description of the 
ocean, with all its atmospheric phenomena, making a story 
as dramatic and stirring as a romance. 60 cents. 

Camp-Fires of a Naturalist. By Clarence E. Edwords. 
The Story of Fourteen Expeditions after North American 
Mammals. By Lewis Lindsay Dyche, A. M., M. S., Pro- 
fessor of Zoology, Kansas State University. With numer- 
ous Illustrations. $1.50. 



D. APPLETON & CO., New York, Boston, Chicago. 
Chicago Address, 243-253 Wabash Avenue. 



WON DERS 



V~lv 



2N 



OF MARINE LIFE 









WITH NINETY- FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS 







BOSTON •:• NEW YORK ■:• CHICAGO 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Copyright, 1894, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 






1 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



Nature-study not only opens to the young reader and investi- 
gator a rich and fascinating field for exploration, but affords the 
most effectual means for training the mind to habits of correct 
observation and discriminating judgment of objects and things 
noted. 

The importance of a proper cultivation of the observing powers 
of the young, and the development of sense-perceptions in obtain- 
ing a knowledge of the visible and tangible properties of objects 
in Nature, can not be overestimated. It affords a mental discipline 
that is essential to sound education, and for which there is no 
proper substitute. The constantly increasing demand for books of 
information and guides to Nature-study in the varied departments 
of animate and inanimate life shows that its importance is recog- 
nized. 

It is believed that these chapters describing some of the strange 
denizens of the sea, many of which are unfamiliar to the majority 
of readers, will prove a welcome addition to the list of books de- 
signed to impart to young readers information of an instructive 
and interesting character. 

(5) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Lowest Forms of Animal Life . . . . . . . . 9 



CHAPTER II. 
The House-Builders of the Ocean and their Relatives . . .23 

CHAPTER III. 
The Swine of the Ocean . . „ .50 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Octopus, Cuttle-fish, Argonaut, etc. ...... 63 

CHAPTER V. 
Some Queer Wanderers of Ocean and River ......-,• 78 

(0) 



LIST OF 1LLUSTKATIONS. 



PAGE 

Sponge, half the natural size, attached to its rocky bed . . . „ .11 
Sponge-fishing on the coast of Syria ........ 13 

The common amoeba 15 

Living hydrozoa 16 

Portuguese man-of-war (physalia arethusa) . . . . . .17 

Adult jelly-fish (aurelia) . 19 

Aurelia 19 

Jellv-fish 20 

Medusa 21 

Fishing for coral 25 

Fresh-water hydra 26 

Plumularia : a coral sprig made by hydroids, one-fiftieth of an inch long . 27 

Cluster of coral polyps in various stages of expansion 28 

Varieties of coral 29 

An horizontal section of a polyp, showing the internal arrangement of the 

folds and compartments 30 

Coral from the West Indies, showing the structure of the cells . . .30 
Multiplication of polyps by spontaneous fission ...... 30 

Coral from the Feejees, called astraea, from the star-shaped cells . . .31 

Brain coral 32 

Porites from the Feejees : cells exceedingly small ...... 33 

Millipores ; coral secreted by jelly-fish 34 

Alcyonoid polyps ; "gayest and most delicate of coral shrubs " . . .35 

Madrepore ; branching from lateral buds .36 

Coral heads off the Brazilian coast 37 

High Island, with barrier and fringing reef 38 

Coral island, or atoll 39 

Metia, or Aurora Island 41 

Anemones, or sea-flowers 43 

Fringed actinia, expanded 44 

Fringed actinia, closed 44 

Sea-anemones 45 

Hermit-crab with sea-anemone on its shell . 47 

Starfish on a rock . .51 

Serpent, or brittle starfish 53 

Basket-fish 54 

Sea-egg, or sea-urchin 55 

Sea-urchins lodged in the rocks they have excavated 57 

Sea-cucumber 59 

The synapta . , . . 61 

Eight-armed cuttle-fish , 64 

(T) 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Gigantic squid, captured by the steam corvette Alecton . . .65 

The giant squid 66 

Octopus, or devil-fish 69 

An octopus running 70 

Octopus tuberculata 73 

Octopus Bairdii (life-size) . .73 

Sepia officinalis and shell 74 

Paper nautilus 74 

Argonaut without the shell 75 

Argonaut with the shell 75 

The argonaut 76 

The sea-horse (father of the family turning adrift his baby colts) . . 79 

American toad-fish 80 

The angler-fish 81 

The angler-fish catches a loon . . . . . . . . .82 

Common sea-raven .82 

Puffer, or swell-fish 84 

Balloon-fish 84 

Common sunfish 85 

Lump-fish ... . . .85 

Common sea-mouse . . .86 

The gar-fish . . . ... . 87 

Globe-fish 88 

Wolf-fish . . . . . .88 

Fishing frog '..'_•' . .89 

Stomias boa . . . .90 

Pipe-fish 90 

Blind fish of Mammoth Cave . . . 91 

The torpedo 92 

Capturing electrical eels by means of horses .95 

Electrical eel . . . ' 96 

Green turtle . . . .97 

Hawk's-bill turtle . . . . . . . . . . . .97 

Trunk turtle 98 

Common seal . . . . . ... 99 

Greenland seal . .99 

Hooded seal , 100 

Esquimaux spearing seals 101 

Southern sea-lion 102 

Sea-bear 103 

Walrus and seals 105 

Young walruses asleep . . 106 

Spearing the walrus 108 

Fishing for narwhals . .110 

Northern sea-cat . . . Ill 

White shark 112 

Capturing a shark • 115 

Hammer-headed shark .116 

Common sawfish 117 

Common swordfish 117 

Right whale 118 

Sperm whale 119 

Fishing for the whale with explosive balls . 122 

Manatee 123 

Dugong .............. 124 



THE WONDEES OF MARINE LIFE, 



CHAPTER I. 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



The lowest forms of ocean life. — The sponge, and its existence as an animal. — The amoeba, 
which eats, drinks, and reproduces its kind without bodily organs. — The jelly-fish, 
and the marvels of its life. — Portuguese man-of-war, medusas, etc. 

Everywhere the eye turns throughout the universe it finds 
food for overwhelming amazement at the wonders of the natural 
world. Whether it is the stars which burn over our heads as they 
roll in their vast orbits ; the earth beneath our feet, which is the 
grave of countless numbers and races of extinct creatures, from 
those tiny as a pin's head to monsters terrible in their size and 
ferocity ; or the seemingly vast waste of the ocean, which is yet 
the home of a most varied and prodigious life, thought is equally 
dazzled by the multitude of interests offered to its study. No 
fairy legend or romance is so interesting as the genuine marvels 
which science has slowly unfolded to the knowledge of man, spe- 
cially so during the last hundred years, during which time science 
has made its most remarkable advances. 

Throughout the kingdom of nature, there is no division which 
more powerfully attracts the imagination, stimulates the curiosity, 
and gratifies the research of man than the ocean. The vast body 
of waters, occupying about two thirds of the earth's surface, is 
the highway of nations, over whose heaving surface great fleets of 
vessels are constantly passing, bearing back and forth rich products 



10 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

from one people to another. There is nothing which appeals to the 
fancy more potent in arousing the emotions of beauty and terror 
than the phenomena of the sea. The grace and charm of its surges, 
breaking in white foam on the sand ; the tumultuous splendor of 
its vast waves, chasing each other for thousands of miles between 
distant continents ; its beauty and variety of color, continually 
offering a fresh feast to the eye ; the sublimity of its rage, when it 
heaves itself, seemingly, to the eye of the terrified voyager, half 
way to the clouds which lower above it ; the pitiless power with 
which it swallows up the stoutest handiwork of man and man him- 
self — all these phases of the ocean seize the imagination with irre- 
sistible force. 

But the ocean has another source of interest not inferior to 
these. Its vast abysses swarm with the most curious and fascinat- 
ing forms of life, from delicate animals which it is difficult to dis- 
tinguish from plants — as, indeed, until within a very recent period, 
science had not yet been able to establish any definite separation — 
to monsters of a size such as the land, with all its productiveness, 
fails to breed. In a recital of some of the wonderful things offered 
by Nature to the contemplation of man, a study of the denizens of 
the sea may properly be considered first, for the wonders of life 
began in the sea. 

Among the lowest forms of life in the world, the sponge is 
that which first attracts attention. This marine animal, which, as 
a production of nature, has been known from early antiquity, was 
a puzzle to the ancient naturalists, who could not make up their 
minds whether it was animal or vegetable. The curious fact was 
perceived that the sponge would shrink from the hand that grasped 
it, and that it clung to the rocks on which it was fixed with much 
tenacity, seeming to be endowed with an almost voluntary force. 
The ancient observers of nature also distinguished males from 
females among the sponges, but still they could not make up 
their minds about its exact place as animal or plant. It was not 
till the studies of the great Swedish naturalist Linnseus threw so 
much light on many previously debated questions that the sponge 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



11 



was finally decided to be an animal. Sponges live at the bottom 
of the sea, at various depths, among the clefts and crevices of rock, 




SPONGE, HALF THE NATURAL SIZE, ATTACHED TO ITS ROCKY BED. 



adhering not only to inorganic bodies but to seaweed and animals,, 
spreading either erect or hanging, according to the body which 
supports them. 



12 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

In the months of April and May sponges develop ova or eggs, 
round, yellow, or white, from which soon proceed embryos, fur- 
nished at one end with delicate vibrating cilia or feelers. These 
are carried off by the currents, or swim around the parent sponge, 
seeking a place to which they may attach themselves. They soon 
fix themselves to some foreign body, and become henceforth im- 
movable, no longer giving signs of either sensibility or contrac- 
tibility, while in their enlargement they are completely transformed. 
The substance is soon riddled with holes, and the sponge is formed. 
Professor Milne Edwards considers each sponge to be an individ- 
ual by itself ; and, as his opinions about this queer sea animal have 
become generally accepted, we shall briefly give his ideas. The 
innumerable canals by which the substance of the sponge is trav- 
ersed are at once its lungs and its stomach. The water passes into 
the numerous little openings into the canals, and is the respiratory 
fluid. It traverses all the different channels, and escapes by spiral 
openings. The currents of water passing into the sponge not only 
furnish breathing fluid, but also food, and carry off the excrement. 
The walls of the canals offer a large absorbing surface, which sepa- 
rates the oxygen necessary for life, and throws off the carbonic- 
acid gas. 

Some sponges form masses of a light, elastic tissue, which is at 
the same time resistant. The number of different species is sup- 
posed to be about four hundred, and they are found of every diver- 
sity of size and shape — in some cases three or four feet in diameter. 
In many cases the skeleton of sponges consists of horny or siliceous 
fibers, and hard mineral bodies are found in them. On buying a 
sponge as prepared for the market, it will be noticed that at first the 
substance is full of these little foreign bodies, which were brought 
with it up from the deep-sea bottom. At the present time sponge 
fishing takes place mostly in the Grecian Archipelago and the Medi- 
terranean Sea. Sometimes the eye will discover a hundred vessels 
in sight during the fishing season, which is from the first of June 
to the first of November. There are about a thousand fishing ves- 
sels engaged in the gathering of sponges. The operations of the 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



13 




SPONGE-FISHING OX THE COAST OF SYRIA. 



14 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

fishermen may be briefly described. The inferior sponges are 
sought for in shallow water in the crevices of the shore rocks, from 
which they are detached by three-pronged harpoons. This, how- 
ever, injures the sponge more or less. The finer sponge is found 
in deep water, and is brought up by divers, who detach the sponge 
from its rocky base by carefully cutting with a knife. This life is 
accompanied by extreme danger, as the sponge diver, like the pearl 
diver, is not only short-lived, in consequence of the extreme fatigue 
and exposure of his labors, but subject in a still more terrifying 
degree to the attacks of that tiger of the sea, the shark, which grows 
in these regions to a great size, and exhibits a corresponding feroc- 
ity. Every sponge fleet which returns with its hard-earned harvest 
has to report the horrible death of not a few of the wretched div- 
ers, whose laborious life is thus encompassed with double perils. 

The Archipelago furnishes for the most part the coarser sponges, 
while the finer grades are found on the coast of Syria and off Bar- 
bary. In the latter region sponges of great fineness are also found 
of great size. Some attempts have been made to naturalize the 
different varieties of sponges on the coasts of France and Algeria 
with a fair degree of success, and this culture promises to be a 
profitable one in the future. The more the sponges advance to- 
ward the north in their habitat, the finer they become, the warm 
tropical seas being rather favorable to the growth of the coarser 
species. The fine Syrian sponge is distinguished for its lightness, 
its flaxen color, its cup-like form, and the fineness of its texture 
and orifices. This is specially used for the toilet, and its price is 
very high. The heavy and reddish Barbary sponge is also valuable 
for domestic use on account of the facility with which it absorbs 
water and its great strength. Sponges are found in different por- 
tions of the world, but those of the Mediterranean Sea are consid- 
ered the most valuable. 

Rising a little higher in the scale of animal life, we come to 
what are known as the root-footed animals, or rhizopods, as they 
are called in science. These are of the simplest organization, and 
can extend or contract themselves at will. These strange creatures 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



15 



push a part of their bodies out into a fin or a foot, and make them- 
selves into a stomach, according to need. Their instability is inces- 
sant, changing into great varieties of size and form, like the fabled 
Proteus. Let us examine one of these wonderful animals, the 










SBS2 



mmmx 



THE COMMON AMCEBA. 



amoeba, under the microscope. At first it looks like a transparent, 
immovable drop. Suddenly it puts forth a false foot, which glides 
along the covering glass, and fixes itself to a point, whither it drags 
the whole of its bulk, presenting an utter change of shape. These 
pseudo-pods, or false feet, are continually being projected and with- 
drawn again into the parent bulk, and it is by this marvelous func- 
tion of change that the creature performs all its offices of move- 
ment, digestion, and reproduction. The amoeba, when it eats, 
simply folds itself around its prey, which consists of almost invisi- 
ble algae or fragments of sea plants, and absorbs it, the gelatinous 
mass soon swallowing them, and leaving only the indigestible por- 
tions. These creatures are tinted green, red, or blue, often show- 
ing under the microscope wonderful changes of color, and it is said 
that the brightness of the color determines the healthiness of the 
animal. Reproduction of kind is effected simply by parting with 
a portion of the body substance, which instantly takes on a new 
life of its own. Thus, without mouth, legs, fins, lungs, stomach, or 
any other organ, the amoeba eats, drinks, digests, swims, and re- 



16 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



produces its kind, the closest analysis all the while discovering 
nothing in this mass of protoplasm but a sort of quivering jelly. 
Yet it performs all the functions of life without any perceptible 
organism. So true is it that some of the greatest marvels of Nature 
are found among her lowest and simplest forms. 

The visitor to the seashore will rarely fail to find among the 
growing seaweeds little plant-like clusters, which at first appear 
to be vegetable, but they are really the curious little sea ani- 
mals called hydroids or jelly-fish. From each little plant there 
arise buds, which soon enlarge, float away, and become beautiful 
jelly-fish. There are other hydroids, in the shape of bells, and 
some which appear like miniature trees with all their foliage 
massed at the top, and from beneath which there depend bunches, 
as it were, of grapes or other fruit. These fruit-like clusters are 
jelly-fishes that stick fast, instead of detaching themselves and 




LIVING HYDROZOA. 

a, natural size ; &, enlarged. 



becoming free jelly-fishes, as in some* other varieties. In the Gulf 
of Mexico are communities of these jelly-fish so organized that 
they seem to constitute but one animal. Such is the well-known 
" Portuguese man-of-war." This community consists of a beauti- 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



IT 



Axnm, 



fully crested air sac, only a few inches in length, floating on the 
water, from which stream a great number of long and curiously con- 
structed appendages. Agassiz says the different parts are so many 
different kinds of members in this queer animal community, al] 
filling different functions. Some catch 
and eat food, others produce buds, and 
others are the locomotive or swimming 
members, having tentacles in some cases 
thirty feet in length. The colors are 
very vivid, showing blue and purple, 
green and crimson, for the most part, 
but melting into a great variety of iri- 
descent hues. 

This miniature marine galley is not, 
however, to be rudely tampered with. 
The French naturalist Le Blond, in his 
" Voyage aux Antilles," gives his ex- 
perience as follows : " One day I was 
bathing with some friends in a bay in 
front of the house where I dwelt, while 
my friends fished for sardines for break- 
fast. I amused myself by diving, in 
the manner of the native Caribbeans, 
under the wave about to break. Hav- 
ing reached the other side of one great 
wave, I had gained the open sea, and 
was returning on the top of the next 
wave to the shore. My rashness nearly 
cost me my life ; a physalia (" Portu- 
guese man-of-war "), many of which 

were stranded on the beach, fixed itself on my left shoulder at the 
moment the wave landed me. I promptly detached it, but many 
of the filaments remained glued to my skin, and the pain I experi- 
enced was so great that I nearly fainted. I seized an oil flask near 
at hand, and swallowed one half, while I rubbed my arm with the 




PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR 

(Physalia arethusa). 



18 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

other. This restored me to myself, and I walked toward the house, 
where two hours of repose relieved the pain, which disappeared 
entirely during the night." 

The French traveler Fredol tells a story of a young sailor who 
jumped overboard to secure a magnificent specimen of the "gal- 
ley," as it is called in the West Indies. He seized it, but the irri- 
tated creature surrounded the person of its assailant with its 
thread-like tentacles, and the swimmer was instantly overpowered. 
On being rescued, he became insensible and for some time his 
life was despaired of. Oftentimes in the tropical seas the water 
will be seen covered with fleets of these beautiful but treacherous 
creatures as far as the eye can reach. They seem to be grega- 
rious in their habits, herding together in shoals, carried along by 
winds and currents, and dragging behind them their thin long 
appendages, conspicuous by their rich coloring, from pale crimson 
to deep blue. "Certainly," writes a well-known French naturalist, 
"we can readily conceive that a poetical imagination might well 
compare the graceful form of the physalia to the most elegant of 
sailing vessels, even if it careened to the wind under a sail of satin, 
and dragged behind it deceitful garlands which struck with death 
every creature which suffered itself to be attracted by its seductive 
appearance." The creature darts out its tentacles swiftly as a flash 
of light, winding around the body like a serpent, and benumbing 
the victim with *its poisonous stings, each tentacle being armed 
with thousands. It will kill fish of Considerable size, and both the 
herring and cuttle-fish are oftentimes its victims. 

Another interesting form of the jelly-fish is the "sunfish," 
known in scientific books as the aurelia. This is disk-shaped, and 
acquires a size of from six to twelve inches. It appears in large 
schools on the surface of the water, and sails along with a sort of 
swimming motion, like the opening and shutting of an umbrella. 
The sunfishes are also remarkable for their stinging properties, and 
are, therefore, called sea-nettles or acalephce. Toward the close of 
summer, the sunfish lays numerous eggs, and perishes in the 
autumn. The eggs hatch into little oval bodies, which swim about 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



19 



by minute hair-like appendages. After a while they attach them- 
selves to rock, shell, or seaweed, and develop into what look like 
plants, As grow T th goes on, the creature divides itself into hori- 
zontal segments, which become more and more marked and sepa- 





ADULT JELLY-FISH (AURELIA' 



1, Early stage of the animal ; 
2, Jelly-fish ready to be de- 
tached and form the adult. 



rated, till each one respectively detaches itself from the others, 
and floats off a fully developed sunfish. Thus each single egg pro- 
duces a number of the adult creatures. The jelly-fishes of the disk 
shape are very numerous and varied in details of structure, form, 
and size. Some have the appendages around the mouth and mar- 
gin greatly prolonged, while others resemble miniature musk- 
melons, the bodies ribbed into separate parts by rows of locomotive 
fringes, and projecting into two most extraordinary tentacles, which 
wave above the w r ater in all manner of beautiful forms, curve and 
spiral. 

The name medusa is applied to the most numerous, remarkable, 
and beautiful varieties of the jelly-fish. These graceful animals 
may be observed anywhere in our summer waters, generally not far 
from the shore. Seeming to the careless sight to be mere floating 
plants, a closer inspection discovers in them animal forms of the 
rarest beauty of form and color, that sail hither and thither, and 
apparently have even a certain power of controlling their move- 



20 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



ments against the set of wind and current. The general name of 
the medusa was applied to this animal on account of the snake- 
like filaments which it possesses, highly suggestive of the serpent 
locks of the Greek Medusa, one of the Gorgons ; perhaps, also, 
from the danger of contact which all too-curious observers incur. 
The property common to nearly all the jelly-fish — that of a most 
severe and painful sting — is in some of the medusae a paralyzing 





JELLY-FISH. 



power against which the strongest men stand no chance. It is 
believed by scientific men that many of the cases of the sudden 
drowning of experienced swimmers is owing in as large degree to 
the attack of these beautiful and inoffensive-looking sea creatures 
as to cramp. 

" Floating on the bosom of the waters," says Fredol, " the me- 



LOWEST FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE. 



21 



dusa resembles a bell, an umbrella, or, better still, a floating mush- 
room, the stalk of which has been separated into lobes more or 
less divergent, sinuous, twisted, shriveled, fringed, the edges of 




the cup being delicately cut, and provided with long thread-like 
appendages, which descend vertically into the water like the droop- 
ing branches of the weeping willow." 

The gelatinous substance of which the body of the medusa is 
formed is sometimes as clear as crystal, sometimes opaline, and 
sometimes bright blue or pale rose-color. Indeed, almost every 
color of the solar spectrum is represented in these little creatures. 
The shining tissue, decked out in the finest tints, is so fragile that, 



22 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

when washed up on the beach, it disappears in the sun without 
leaving a trace behind. Yet these living soap-bubbles of the sea 
make long voyages, and in some parts of the ocean abound in such 
enormous quantity that they make the principal food of the greatest 
of sea animals, the whale. They swim by their long tentacles and 
by contraction and dilatation of their bodies ; and the ancients, 
from this peculiar movement of the medusse, named them sea 
lungs. Wandering over the seas in immense battalions, if an ob- 
stacle arrests them or an enemy touches them, the umbrella con- 
tracts, the tentacles are folded up, and the timid animals sink into 
the depths of the ocean. 

The medusae are furnished with a mouth, placed habitually in 
the middle of the umbrella-like head ; a mouth, too, which is rarely 
empty, for the animal is voracious in the extreme, devouring even 
shell-fish, and attacking successfully fish four or five inches in 
length. In respect to size the medusae vary immensely, some being 
very small, while others attain more than a yard in diameter. 
They breathe through the skin, and the organs of digestion are very 
peculiar. The walls of the stomach are furnished with a great mul- 
titude of vibrating hairy appendages, which secrete a juice supposed 
to decompose the food and make it digestible. Scientists also assert 
that these creatures have a distinct circulation, organs of sense, and 
something like a nervous system. The medusae, for the most part,, 
reproduce themselves in the manner already described in the allied 
form of the aurelia, or sunfish. Few fishes are more marvelous in 
their construction, more beautiful and graceful in form, than the 
medusa, and there is none which can be more easily studied by the 
frequenter of the seaside. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN AND THEIR RELATIVES. 

The coral polyp and its works. — The precious coral, and how it is obtained. — The mass 
and extent of coral formations. — The coral polyp an animal. — Description of this won- 
derful house-builder. — Its methods of reproduction. — How it works. — Different forms 
of coral. — The part the coral has taken in building the earth. — Different coral islands 
and their distribution. — The sea anemone the cousin of the coral polyp. — Its exquisite 
beauty, its structure, and habits. — Descriptions and anecdotes by different naturalists. 

Among the polyps, or " many-footed " denizens of the ocean, to 
which all of the lowest orders of marine life belong, there is none 
which evokes a more active and curious interest than the minute 
animal which builds greater architectural piles than the genius 
and wealth of man have ever raised on the land. Laying the 
foundation deep in the abysses of water, it builds its solid ma- 
sonry inch by inch till it rises above the spray and becomes an 
island. Disintegration of the coral surface, subject to the winds 
and rains and the heat of the sun, at last makes a light soil, and the 
birds and winds fetch seeds to this prepared garden which quickly 
germinate, and soon the coral island is covered with greenery and 
fit to sustain the life of man. Straightway the mind stops to think 
of this mighty fact in the processes of nature, it is filled with awe 
and amazement. Even trifles become marvelous when we meet 
them in a mood of fresh and receptive thought. How much more 
so such a work as a coral island, laid thousands of feet in the ocean 
depths, and rearing above the waste of waters its fan-like plumes of 
cocoanut and rich greenness of verdure. 

The product known as coral has been celebrated from time im- 
memorial. As far back as the songs of Orpheus, there is recognition 
of it, and the ancient savage tribes, who lived by the shores of the 



24: THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

ever-sounding sea, were wont to decorate their persons and weapons 
with it. But it has taken twenty centuries of groping in the dark 
to reveal the true nature of this wonderful product. The red or 
precious coral is a branched polypus trunk, as hard as the most 
compact rocks and susceptible of a beautiful polish. When with- 
drawn from the sea, where it is found at great depths, it looks like 
a bush. The branches seem to be covered with a rose-colored bark, 
and in it are small holes where live the builders. These are polyps, 
which, when expanded, wear the appearance of pretty little white 
flowers, with eight divisions spread out like rays, and the borders 
of which are ornamented with a fringe of ciliaB, or feelers. It was 
owing to this appearance that the celebrated traveler, Tournefort, 
spoke of the coral as " a marine or fluviatile plant, the flowers and 
fruits of which are generally unknown." It was not till the early 
part of the eighteenth century that Peyssonnel, a French physician, 
who was traveling on the coast of Barbary, made a closer examina- 
tion, and announced the animal nature of the coral. This discovery 
was at first laughed at, but the French Academy of Sciences ap- 
pointed a committee of savants, who confirmed the physician's views. 
The precious coral, which is for the most part of a rose-color, is 
fished for in various parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and gives occa- 
sion to the employment of many men and vessels. It is found in 
nearly all shades of red from a light pink to a deep crimson, the 
former color being in most esteem in Europe, while the Orientals 
prefer the darker tints. It can only be secured by extreme labor, 
as the machinery for tearing the coral from its ocean bed is of 
the most primitive sort. Simple dredges are thrown overboard 
into the depths of the sea, and, as the coral is very firmly at- 
tached, it is only by great effort that it can be wrenched away. 
Another species is the black coral, which is also used for the manu- 
facture of trinkets, though it is far less common than the rose coral. 
The beautiful colors of this coral, which give it value for purposes 
of ornament, are supposed to be the result of something peculiar 
in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, as it is only found in this 
marine region. The coral polyp gets its food from the sea-water 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



25 



solely, and it is reasonable to suppose that qualities of color may be 
transmitted in this way. Such is the only explanation which natu- 
ralists make of the glowing tints of the Mediterranean coral. 

But, great as is the interest in the precious coral which is manu- 
factured by the jeweler into such beautiful ornaments, it is the 
other coral animals whose works are the most fascinating to the 
Could the ocean be suddenly drained dry, it would 




FISHING FOR CORAL. 



reveal forests and gardens of almost boundless extent. Stately 
tree-like structures, and a multitudinous shrubbery, delicate in form, 
make a world of life and beauty in the abysses of the sea, where 
the eye of man can now never penetrate. It is principally in the 
South Pacific that the constructions of these polyps mostly abound. 
At the approaches to the Maldive Islands they form extraordinary 
masses as large as the Alps. Dana says that the larger coral 
islands are about two hundred and ninety in number, with a 



26 



TEE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



total area of twenty thousand square miles, equal, perhaps, to an 
eighth part of the surface of all the other islands of this vast sea 
of the Southern Pacific. Professor Owen thus sums up the im- 
mensity of their labors : " The prodigious extent of the combined 
and unintermitting labors of these little world architects must be 
witnessed to be adequately conceived. They have built a barrier 
reef along the shores of New Caledonia for a length of four hundred 
miles, and another, which runs along the northeast coast of Aus- 
tralia, one thousand miles in extent." This represents a mass, com- 
pared with which the walls of Babylon and the Egyptian Pyramids 
are but the toys of children. And it must be recollected that these 
edifices of a minute animal have been reared in the midst of the 
ocean waves and in defiance of tempests which quickly annihilate 
the proudest works of man. The submarine coral structures rival 
in extent and grandeur the noblest mountain scenery on land. The 
tiny animals, innumerable in number, have been working through 
countless ages, until they are now ranked as among the most effec- 
tive agencies by which the crust of 
the earth has been shaped and modi- 
fied. Multitudes of islands, hundreds 
and thousands of feet above the sur- 
face of the ocean, and multitudes of 
others sunk thousands of feet below it ; 
stony reefs, along which the navigator 
may sail hundreds of miles ; the mass of 
rock through which Niagara is gradu- 
ally carving its way, and extensive beds 
of limestone scattered over the world — 
all have been extracted from sea-wa- 
ter and secreted by the jelly-like coral 
polyp. No more vivid illustration can be fancied of the silent forces 
which have wrought such wonderful changes in the earth than the 
work of the minute sea animal which we are now considering. 

The coral polyp is now known to be as much of an animal as a cat 
or a dog. The apparent flower is a little sac-like creature, and the 




FRESH-WATER HYDRA. 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



27 



wreath of colored petals its arras or tentacles. Not all the coral-making 
creatures, however, are polyps, as some of the lowest tribes of mol- 




PLOIULARIA ; A CORAL SPRIG MADE BY HYDROIBS, ONE-FIFTIETH OF AN T INCH LONG. 



lusks, and even seaweeds, have the power of secreting a kind of coral. 
The fresh-water hydra, which may be seen attached to the un- 



28 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




CLUSTER OF CORAL POLYPS IN VARIOUS STAGES 
OF EXPANSION. 



der side of plants, has this power of coral secretion to some degree, 
and some of the other hydroids also have the same function. One 
of them produces a work which looks like a plant, and is called, 

in allusion to its delicate 
plumes, the plumularia. 

The true polyps are di- 
vided into those that secrete 
coral and those that do not, 
the latter having soft, leath- 
ery bodies and living at- 
tached to substances on the 
sea bottom. They have the 
power of locomotion by con- 
tracting and expanding the 
muscles of the disk. But 
the coral-making animals are 
fixed to the stone which they 
create, and which is a part of themselves. The polyp is the liv- 
ing part of the coral, the gelatinous mass which fills the cells on 
the coralline surface. The animal consists of a sac or stomach and 
an enveloping membrane, an opening from the stomach being the 
mouth. This mouth is surrounded by tentacles, by which food is 
taken in and the solid matters out of which it constructs its shell- 
like tomb. Fleshy folds extend throughout the animal, and give 
the polyp the appearance of a little balloon of tissue paper crum- 
pled up, when out of the water. The coral polyp is formidably 
armed in the stinging barbs which cover its tentacles, mouth, and 
stomach, and produce torpor and death in any small animal touched 
by them. The little cells in which these stings are lodged are called 
lasso cells, and measure from -3^- of an inch to 5 ^ 00 of an inch in 
length. The lasso is darted from these sheaths or hiding-places, 
and is capable of inflicting painful injury even on the human hand. 
Between the fleshy folds of the coral polyp's body are thin 
shell-like plates. These with the other hard portions make up the 
coral skeleton, which is formed just as an oyster forms its shell 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



29 



When we speak of the architecture of the coral-building animal, we 
do not therefore imply outside mechanical work, such as the bee 
performs in making its comb, but the mere operation of a vital 
function like that of the higher animals in forming or secreting 
their skin and nails. Professor Dana says : " This process of secre- 
tion is one of the first and most common of those that belong to 
living tissues. It belongs eminently to the lowest kinds of life. 
These are the best stone-makers, for in their simplicity of con- 




YARIETIES OF CORAL. 



struction they may be almost all stone and still carry on the pro- 
cesses of nutrition and growth." 

In the reef -building species the young polyp is reproduced by a 
sort of budding from the parent animal. The bud, we are told by 
Professor Dana, commences as a slight prominence on the side of 
the parent. The prominence enlarges, a mouth opens, a circle of 
tentacles grows out around it, and the young polyp increases 
till it attains the size of the parent. In this species the young do 



30 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



not separate from the parent, but form a compound group. In 
other species there is a spontaneous division of the parent polyp, 
so that the new one begins life side by side with the other in the 
same cell. Among the reef-building corals some of the principal 
groups are worthy of special description. The Astrseas, named 




AN HORIZONTAL SECTION OF A POLYP, 

Showing the Internal Arrangement of tht 
Folds and Compartments. 




CORAL FROM THE WEST INDIES, 

Showing; the Structure of the Cells. 



from their star-shaped cells, grow in great hemispherical masses 
twenty feet or more in diameter. The brain coral is so named 
from its furrows and ridges — convolutions, as it were. The Porites 
are very massive and branched, being covered with exceedingly 



MULTIPLICATION OF POLYPS BY SPONTANEOUS FISSION. 



minute cells. Most of the West India reefs, known as the Milli- 
pores coral, are not the product of a coral, but of a certain sort of 
jelly-fish. Both the Madrepore and the Alcyonoid coral are beauti- 
fully branched. The latter coral is flexible, and sways with the 
moving waters. In some cases it hangs down in gorgeous clusters 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 31 

of scarlet, purple, and crimson. In all these cases each cell is inhab- 
ited by an individual polyp. The diameter of the tentacles of the 
polyp is about an eighth of an inch, and such a resemblance do 
they form to the petals of a flower that they are oftentimes called 
coral flowers. The Astrseas have sometimes nearly a hundred petals 
or tentacles to a single animal. The rays or tentacles readily fold 
inward, and at the slightest alarm the waving tentacles close, and 
all evidence of life disappears. In some masses of coral, not more 
than twelve feet in diameter, Professor Agassiz estimates there were 
not less than 14,000,000 polyps. Each mature polyp, when fixed in 




CORAL FROM THE FEEJEES, CALLED ASTR.EA, FROM THE STAR-SHAPED CELLS. 

its cell, may be considered as resting on the tombs of its ancestors ; 
and when it dies its descendants will repeat the process over its re- 
mains, and its own body, within which its share of coral has been 
secreted, will be the base for a fresh descendant and its operations. 
Mr. Damon, a well-known American naturalist, thus writes of 
the coral formation : " The large, massive forms of coral, whether 
of the dome, reef, or tree-like shape, would never reach the mag- 
nificent proportions that they do were it not for that peculiar pro- 
vision of Nature in regard to the zoophytes, of life and death both 
proceeding simultaneously and successively ; each, combined and 
singly, aiding in one and the same object. This curious condition 



32 



THE W ORDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



of growth favors the coral aggregation by allowing the living 
polyp, as it secretes the calcareous matter, to mount upward on 
that which it has already secreted and deposited. From the suc- 




BRAIN CORAL 



cessful execution of this ascending process, we are led to infer 
either that the creature has the power of indefinite elongation, or 
that it must desert the precipitated portion of the corallum as 
growth proceeds ; and, in fact, this last is what actually occurs. 
In some instances a polyp of only an inch in length, and even less, 
has been found at the top of a stem many inches in height ; for the 
whole substance of what is called ' living coral ' is in reality dead, 
excepting the extreme surface or point of each branch occupied by 
the little animal. The living tissues which once filled the cells of 
the lower portion of the corallum have been consumed by natural 
processes, and have disappeared as growth went on above. . . . 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF TEE OCEAN. 



33 



The final solidification of the coral mass is aided by the increased 
secretion by the polyp shortly before its death, filling all the pores 
with this stony matter in proportion as the vital tissues occupy- 
in^ them shrink and dwindle. This last deposit greatly aids in- 




PORITES FROM THE FEEJEES 
3 



CELLS EXCEEDINGLY' SMALL. 



34 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



strengthening those tree-like or branched coral growths which, 
though so slender of form, are really very strong." 

When first born the young larvae are worm-like in form, and 
are very agile, darting about in all directions, and apparently enjoy- 
ing themselves greatly. But this life of freedom soon comes to an 
end ; their base becomes attached to some stationary object ; and 
their gay youth is exchanged for a sedentary life, with no other 




MILLIPORES ! CORAL SECRETED BY JELLY-FISH. 



changes than those of eating and digesting their food. " There are 
few natural objects," says Mr. Damon, " more pleasing than an as- 
sociation of these corallets ; for, as the polyps rise above their cells 
and extend their fine, long tentacles, resembling threads of pure 
white silk, waving them to and fro, like the radiated petals of a fairy 
flower swayed by a gentle zephyr, or, again, like a minute feather fan 
slightly concave at the edge, they present an exceedingly animated 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN, 



35 



and elegant appearance. Sometimes, when nearly at rest, and the 
filaments are more contracted, they suggest the appearance of a 
dense frost settled upon a bed of moss." 

Coral formations, however huge in their masses, are dead and 
deserted throughout, except a thin crust on the surface, not more 
than an eighth of an inch thick, which constitutes the living por- 
tion where the work goes on. This resembles the process of growth 







ALCYONOID POLYPS \ u GAYEST AND MOST DELICATE OF COUAL SHRUBS." 



in the higher order of trees, where the inner portion of the trunk is 
dead, while fresh concentric living layers are continually being 
added. The increase of the coral goes on without limit until the 
dome reaches the top of the water, when the animal dies, and then 
growth only takes place on the sides. When the coralline mass 
sinks by the subsidence of the land, growth goes on, and reefs of 
enormous mass and thickness are created. 



36 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

The dead coral is always more or less porous until all the polyp 
cells get filled with carbonate of lime, and by chemical changes the 
mass finally becomes solid coral rock and compact limestone with 




MADREPORE ; BRANCHING FROM LATERAL BUDS. 

but few traces remaining of structure. As coral masses increase in 
size, of course there is a corresponding increase in the number of the 
coral animals. In fact, a great coral dome, larger than any build- 
ing on earth, may have arisen from the fecundity of a single coral 
polyp. It bewilders the imagination to think what an inconceiva- 
ble number of animals, during the long period of growth of a great 
coral formation, must have lived, builded, and died during the tens 
of thousands of years required in raising these colossal edifices 
from the depths of the ocean. 

Professor Agassiz says of the coral reef at Key West, that it 
indicates about six inches increase in one hundred years. " If we 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN, 



37 



allow twice that rate of growth, not less than seven thousand years 
would be required for the formation of the great reef at that place, 
and hundreds of thousands of years for the coral growths which 
form the peninsula of Florida." It is a reasonable calculation that 
more than one million years have elapsed since the foundations 
were laid for some of the great Pacific reefs. It is an interesting 
fact that no important reef-building coral polyp lives at a depth 
greater than one hundred and twenty feet. Above that, all the 
work of coral manufacture is carried on. How, then, can the oc- 
currence of coral masses four thousand feet thick be explained ? 

Mr, Charles Darwin probably gives the answer in the gradual 
subsidence of the lands and ocean bed. The subsidence has often 
been at the same slow rate at which the coral reefs were increasing 
on top. As the coral animal flourishes only in warm waters, it is 
in the tropical seas that we find the finest specimens of his work. 
The greatest reefs abound and grow in the zone of greatest heat. 
Surrounding most of the tropical islands are two principal reefs — 
one fringing the shore, and the other, called the " barrier reef," lying 




CORAL HEADS OFF THE BRAZILIAN COAST. 



seaward, sometimes fifteen miles away. The intervening space is 
filled with minor reefs and a gorgeous wealth of coral vegetation. 
Here are grand platform reefs, a shell of coral, covering the 



3S THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

bottom beneath the shallow waters. West of the two large Feejee 
Islands are three thousand square miles of reef ground. On these 
outer reefs the waves break with tremendous force and fury ; and 
here, where the plunge and roar of the surf are greatest, the polyps 
nourish with most vigor, and open their richly colored petals to the 
life-giving waters, as thirsty flowers to the welcome rain. Outside 
the reefs again there are curious coral growths, in isolated patches, 
called coral heads, looking like enormous mushrooms. One near 
Turk's Island stands in water fifty feet deep. The trunk is about 
fifteen feet in diameter, and supports a tubular mass one hundred 
feet in diameter, whose top is bare at low tide. It many places the 
tops of adjacent trunks have joined together, forming a coral floor 
resting on arches and pillars built without axe or hammer. Some- 




HIGH ISLAND, WITH BARRIER AND FRINGING BEEF. 

times these united coral heads cover large areas. A sight magnifi- 
cent in the extreme would greet the human eye, if a recession of 
the sea should leave the arches and columns of these gorgeous tem- 
ples of the ocean exposed to the human vision, such a vision as no 
works of human genius presents. 

The outer side of coral reefs is usually perpendicular, while the 
inner side is a gentle declivity. The cause of this will be quickly 
apparent in following the development of a reef from the bottom. 
The reef-builders attach themselves to a floor of sand or rock, at a 
depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and begin to grow. The 
reef rises, but, as the corals grow most rapidly in pure waters, the 
inside wall is more precarious and uncertain, the wash of the land 
and perhaps the discharge of streams tending to foul the sea-water 
and interfere with the health of the coral workers. This cause 



TEE EOUSE-BUILDEES OF TEE OCEAN. 39 

tends to modify the form of the reef, but such a reef always encir- 
cles the land ; and, as long as a subsidence of the sea bottom may 
be going on, the growth of the reef continues. 

With this sinking of the land, it is perfectly obvious the area 
of the island must diminish until it disappears. Then we have a 
lagoon over the former site, surrounded by a fringe of coral reefs, 
for the tireless architects have never ceased their building labors. 
At last over the land where once grew the most luxuriant tropical 
vegetation a coral floor is formed. Such, perhaps, has been the 
history of thousands of islands in the Pacific alone, and the vast 
reefs, from which the ocean sends up a thunderous roar without 
ceasing, are the monuments of this ocean cemetery. It is believed 
by scientists now that the depression of the sea bottom in the 
Pacific Ocean has long since ceased, and the opposite force of 
gradual elevation commenced. The encircling reefs, with the shal- 
low lagoon of which we have spoken, are called an atoll. The 
force of the waves breaks off fragments of the coral rock and hurls 
them on the reef. In this way beaches ten or twelve feet above 
the ocean have been formed, composed of coral sand made fine and 
drifted by winds and waves, fragments of shells, bones of fishes, 



CORAL ISLAND, OR ATOLL. 



and similar matters drifted by the sea, the flotsam and jetsam of 
old ^Neptune. 

Professor Dana describes the beauty of a coral atoll in the fol- 
lowing language : " When first seen from the deck of a vessel, only 
a series of dark points is descried just above the horizon. Shortly 



40 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

after the points enlarge into the plumed tops of cocoanut-trees, 
and a line of green, interrupted at intervals, is traced along the 
water's surface. Approaching still nearer, the lake and its belt of 
verdure are spread out before the eye, and a scene of more interest 
can hardly be imagined. The surf, beating loud and heavy along 
the margin of the reef, presents a strange contrast to the prospect 
beyond. There lie the white coral beach, the massy foliage of the 
grove, and the imbosomecl lake with the tiny islets. The color of 
the lagoon water is often as blue as the ocean, although but ten or 
twenty fathoms deep ; yet shades of green and yellow are inter- 
mingled. Sometimes there is a ship channel through the reefs 
into the lagoon, then again only a shallow channel, and sometimes 
none at all." 

Near the ocean side of some of the great reefs there is found 
enormous depth of water. Just off one of the Panmotus group, 
bottom was not found at 6,870 feet. Again, not more than a cable's 
length off Peacock Island, no bottom was found at 1,800 feet. In 
fact, deep soundings in the vicinity of the Pacific coral islands are 
universal. Should these submerged islands ever be again elevated, 
an immense area of the Pacific would be converted again into an 
archipelago ; not of verdure-covered land as formerly, but of huge 
hills and towering mountains of coral rock, bristling with crags and 
precipices. 

The coral-bearing area of the Pacific Ocean extends from the 
southern side of the Hawaiian Islands to Pitcairn's Island to the 
southeast ; thence, two thousand miles broad and six thousand miles 
long, to the Pelew Islands, north of New Guinea, in the Polynesian 
seas, being as large as the continent of Africa, or of Europe and 
North America combined. In many instances Pacific coral islands 
have been elevated since reefs were formed on them, the elevations 
in a few instances reaching six hundred feet. Metia or Aurora 
Island, one of the Panmotus group, has walls of coral limestone two 
hundred and fifty feet high, resembling the Hudson Palisades, and 
falling in an almost perpendicular line to the ocean. Along the 
outer margins of these elevated islands are deep caverns, wrought 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 41 

by the erosive action of the waves. The Bermuda Islands are 
remarkable for these caverns, the coral-made land being, in some 
instances, two hundred and fifty feet from the sea-level. On the 
island of Oaka is one where the explorer may wander nearly a mile 
through splendid stalactitic caves. 

On the coral islands may be found much beauty, but little 




METIA, OR AURORA ISLAND. 



variety. About a dozen different varieties of plant life are found, 
and no animals higher than fishes, except a few migratory birds, 
unless in cases where animals have been introduced by man. The 
coral-made land was born of the ocean, its palm groves planted 
by the waves, and here man, too, is found in his most savage, 
filthy, and ignoble condition. Held by physical conditions with 
relentless bonds, he transmits his inheritance of degradation to his 
children. Alternately he gorges himself, like a wild beast, and 
starves, and is driven to infanticide for self -protection. It is in 
the land of the elm and oak, the beech and hickory, that we must 
look for the conditions that mold manhood to its higher estate, 
rather than beneath the shade of the pandanus and cocoa-palm. 
To quote from Professor Dana : " A coral island, even in its best 
condition, is but a miserable place for human development, physi- 
cal, mental, and moral. There is poetry in every feature, but the 
natives find this a poor substitute for the bread-fruit and yams of 
more favored lands. How many of the various arts of civilized 
life could exist in a land where shells are the only cutting instru- 



42 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

merits, fresh water barely enough for household purposes, no 
streams, nor mountains, nor hills ? How much of the poetry and 
literature of Europe would be intelligible to persons whose ideas 
had expanded only to the limits of a coral island, who had never 
conceived of a surface more than half a mile in breadth, of a slope 
higher than a beach, of a change in seasons beyond a variation 
in the prevalence of rain ? " 

Such are the coral islands, beautiful gems of the waves, fascinat- 
ing in their aspects, both from the picturesque and scientific stand- 
point. At one time the coral animals swarmed in the immense seas 
which rolled their tumultuous surges over almost all the lands now 
covered by cultivated fields and great cities. Most of the continent 
of Europe, indeed, rests on a vast cemetery of corals, and it may 
be safeiy asserted that these little creatures have played the most 
important part in the architecture of the great world on which 
we live. 

Nearly allied to the coral polyp is the beautiful marine animal 
know a as the sea-anemone, though this creature is not an architect, 
nor has it played an important part in the great changes of the 
ocean bottom, and thus indirectly in the formation of the planet. 
In beauty of tint and form these inhabitants of the sea rival the 
most exquisite products of the floral kingdom. But, in addition to 
loveliness of form and color, they have the superior attraction of 
vitality. These sea flowers are living animals, breathing, eating, 
digesting, and capable of changing their forms at will. A pink 
would be more curious if it could walk, a rose awaken greater in- 
terest if it could reach after its necessary nourishment and take 
care of its own buds. This is what the flowers of the sea do. 
Supported by a solid base and cylindrical stem, the observer sees 
them terminate like the corolla of a flower, as in the petals of the 
anemone which gives the animal its name. These charming and 
timid creatures are also called actiniae, as indicating their tendency 
to form rays or stars, from the Greek word afctin, sl ray. 

The body of these animals is cylindrical in form, terminating 
beneath in a muscular disk, which is generally large and distinct, 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



43 



enabling them to cling vigorously to foreign bodies. It terminates 
above in an upper disk, bearing many rows of tentacles which differ 
from each other only in their size. These tentacles are often deco- 




AHEMONES, OR SEA-FLOWERS. 



rated with brilliant colors, forming a species of collarette, consisting 
of tubes which can be contracted and extended, pierced at their 
points by an orifice, whence water can be drawn in or ejected at the 
will of the animal. Arranged in multiples of circles, they distribute 
themselves with perfect regularity around the mouth. These are 
the arms of the zoophyte. The mouth of the sea-anemone, oval in 
form, is among the tentacles, and communicates with the stomach 
by a short tube. This stomach performs a variety of offices, for it 



44 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




FRINGED ACTINIA, EXPANDED. 



is the digestive organ, the lungs, and from it are projected the 
young of the creature. The ova, or eggs, are held in the tentacles 
or feelers, and are fecundated in the month of September, when 

the embryos are developed. These then 
pass into the stomach, being afterward 
ejected from the mouth with the reject- 
ed portions of the food. So we see that 
it is the stomach that breathes, and the 
mouth which is the organ of birth. 

The sea-anemones multiply their spe- 
cies in another manner, similar to the 
process already described in the coral 
polyp. Bud-like excrescences appear on 
the edge of the base, which finally de- 
tach themselves from the mother and be- 
come separate animals. In fact, in some 
species there is still another method, 
which is thus described by Mr. Hogg, the naturalist. Wishing 
to detach an anemone from the aquarium, he only succeeded by 
violent efforts in tearing off the lower portion of the creature, six 
partly separated portions remaining attached to the glass. At the 
end of eight days it was noticed that 
these fragments of the animal seemed 
to have distinct contractile powers, and 
that each had a row of tentacles. They 
developed shortly into six perfect anem- 
ones. Every part of these strange crea- 
tures thus became a living creature, while 
the mutilated mother continued to live 
as if nothing had happened. In short, 
sea-anemones may be cut limb from limb, 

divided and subdivided. Each part of the body is quickly replaced. 
Cut off the tentacles, and they are renewed in a very short time. 

The sea-anemones vary in their habitat from pools near low- 
water mark to eighteen or twenty fathoms of water, whence they 




FRINGED ACTINIA, CLOSED. 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



45 




3. <& 



.5 c>5 



03 "43 



<J3 .5 

„ S3 



> 

o «o 



4:6 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

have been dredged up. "They adhere," says Dr. Johnson, "to 
rocks, shells, and other extraneous bodies by means of a glutinous 
secretion from their enlarged base ; but they can leave their hold 
and remove to another station whensoever it pleases them, either 
by gliding along with a slow and almost imperceptible movement 
(half an inch in five minutes, as is their usual method), or by re- 
versing the body and using the tentacles for feet, or, lastly, by 
inflating the body with water to make themselves buoyant, and 
allowing themselves to be driven by the random motion of the 
waves. They feed on shrimps, small crabs, whelks, and similar 
mollusks, and probably on all animals brought within their reach 
whose strength or agility is not sufficient to extricate them from 
the grasp of their numerous tentacula." 

The sea-anemone passes nearly its whole life fixed to some rock, 
section of coral, the back of a crab or other crustacean. There 
it lives a sort of unconscious and obtuse existence, gifted with an 
instinct so obscure that it is not even conscious of the prey in 
its vicinity until it is actually in contact, when it seizes it in its 
mouth and swallows it. One naturalist tells the story of a large 
actinia who took a notion to swallow a scollop which it had cap- 
tured. After much stretching it got the bivalve down into its 
stomach, and in due time the mollusk was digested. The problem 
then was to get rid of the shell. It was a double disaster : the 
scollop had been taken in, and so was the sea-flower. It was the 
same as if a guest at the table should swallow a tea-saucer. The 
anemone, however, proved equal to the emergency. It literally 
changed its base by dividing itself into two animals attached to 
the scollop shell as a foundation, each part becoming a perfect 
animal. 

When free, the anemone swims backward, till its base encounters 
a firm object, and then it fixes itself by suction. There are two 
specimens which show a marked preference for the back of crabs 
and similar animals. One is called the parasite anemone, and its 
favorite home is on the hard shell of the hermit-crab. As these 
crabs are great travelers, and frequently vacate their domiciles by 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 



47 




HERMIT-CRAB WITH SEA-ANEMONE ON ITS SHELL. 



taking possession of other empty shells, this species of anemone sees 
more of life than his cousins. 

The sea-flowers differ greatly in size, form, and color, and also in 
special peculiarities of de- 
velopment and function ; 
so that a large collection 
would have the appear- 
ance of an animated flow- 
er - garden composed of 
carnations, china - asters, 
dahlias, daisies, etc " The 
beauty of many species," 
says Mr. Damon, " is 
greatly enhanced by the 
fact that several colors are 
combined in individual 
specimens. Thus some- 
times the main body or 

column will be green with white or golden tentacles, and the base 
buff with a pink disk or tips, or crimson with azure spheroids ; 
sometimes the whole animal will be of one color, varied by differ- 
ent tints and shades. Down below, in the caves of the sea, these 
wonderful creatures have for untold ages anticipated our modern 
' combination suits,' and have appeared dressed in all the glory of 
scarlet and gold, pink and gray, blue and white, green and crim- 
son ; their exquisite taste always selecting accords or pleasing 
contrasts, and avoiding all discordant shades which would clash or 
'kill' each other, such as we sometimes see in human productions." 

The column-shaped body of the anemone is soft, but usually 
tough and tenacious, and consists of a simple sac or cavity, com- 
monly broadened at the base and open at the top or mouth. The 
upper chambers of the cavity are prolonged into tentacles or feelers 
which extend in a number of rows around the mouth, forming, 
when they are all extended, a beautiful crown. " If these tentacles 
or feelers are touched, or if the creature is in any way alarmed, 



48 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

they are instantly contracted, and all the parts sink down and are 
drawn together into a compact mass. This is effected by the exu- 
dation of water from the cavities or chambers through a series of 
openings connected with the central cavity. Expansion takes place 
by the reversed action, filling these cells with water." Sometimes 
the power which they possess of altering their shape appears to be 
exercised for the mere pleasure of the thing. Now they will con- 
tract themselves into balls, partially elongated and expanded ; then 
they will stretch out their fringes or tentacles to their widest extent, 
like a many-petaled flower in full bloom ; and again they will en- 
circle themselves with belts or girdles, drawn more or less tight and 
shifting up and down, involving changes of form every minute. 

" In addition to the tentacles," says the author last quoted, 
" these curious creatures are armed for attacking their prey with 
what we may call fine thread-like lassos, of arrow-like sharpness, 
called cnidw (from a Greek word meaning a nettle), from which is 
transmitted a powerful stinging and benumbing sensation, deadly 
to small prey, the victim being affected as by a shock of electricity. 
This I know by experience, for, some years ago, when in Bermuda, 
while attempting to take a large actinia from a rock, one of these 
soft- looking beauties gave me a shock which disabled my arm for 
hours. It will easily be understood that this concealed battery 
enables the sea-anemones to conquer much larger and stronger crea- 
tures than they could hold simply by the tentacles ; they often 
seize large shrimps and crabs far beyond their own size. Occa 
sionally, however, if one of these finds an anemone weakened from 
any cause, it will take up a position upon the edge of its mouth, 
keeping it distended, and with its claws pluck out the food from 
the victim's sac and appropriate it to its own use. Sometimes, 
when such an attempt is made, a combat ensues, and then woe to 
the marauder if he has mistaken the strength of the sea-anemoue ! 
He will surely fall into his own trap." 

A naturalist tells the story of the self-protective power of the 
actinia in the following sprightly manner : " Let me invite you to 
a sight I have many times beheld. I have in captivity a hungry 



THE HOUSE-BUILDERS OF THE OCEAN. 49 

sea-flower. Knowing well what suits its palate, I take a delicate 
morsel like a pillule and let it fall in the water. It descends on the 
waving petals or tentacula, on the point of one of which the pretty 
creature has caught it in an instant. How delicate the adjustment 
upon its more than fairy fingers ! For a few minutes it is balanced 
with the nicest poise on that dactylic petal. Ah ! a voracious and 
unmannerly little bummer of a minnow sees the delicious morsel, 
and makes a rapid dash to snatch it from my pet. Good, good ! 
Well done, my bonny ! I did not see the slightest motion of that 
indignant flower creature ; yet assuredly there was a movement, 
and an effectual one too, for the zoophyte had shot one of its in- 
visible shafts, and the ichthyic thief dashes off like one frantic with 
pain. Is he hurt ? Likely. He is stung in the snout. See how 
he seems to shake his nose. He actually seems to sneeze again, 
and conducts himself much like a puppy that, uninvited, has thrust 
his nose into a basin of not soup. Ah, ha ! He is rubbing his 
fishy proboscis against a frond of sea-lettuce. Perhaps the salad 
may cool his burning pain." Sometimes, however, the insatiable 
stomach of the sea-flower is made to give up its prey. Among 
the successful robbers, shrimps are foremost. The shrimp, seeing 
the anemone devouring its food, will dash on it from a distance, 
and sometimes even extract the swallowed morsel from the stom- 
ach itself. Seating itself on the extended disk of the sea-flower, 
with its small feet it prevents the approach of the tentacles at the 
same time that it inserts its claws into the digestive cavity and 
seizes the food. In vain the anemone tries to contract its gills and 
close its mouth. Sometimes the conflict between the zoophyte and 
crustacean becomes serious. When the former is strong and ro- 
bust the aggression is repelled, and the aggressive shrimp makes 
the dessert for the sea-flower's repast." 

If the actinia is voracious, it has also great powers of fasting. 
These creatures have been known to live two and three years with- 
out any nourishment. They are said to be delicate eating, and to 
be in considerable favor for the table in Southern France, Italy, 
and Greece, the taste resembling closely that of the crab or lobster. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 

Curious analogies between the inhabitants of land and sea. — The echinoderras or 
"hedgehogs" of the ocean. — The starfish, and its curious habits. — Eemarkable 
power of selfTproduction. — The scavengers of the sea. — Its ravages on the oyster- 
beds. — The sea-urchin, how it lives, moves, and has its being. — A salt-water porcu- 
pine. — Marvels of its shell. — Methods of defense. — A choice article of food. — The 
sea-cucumber. — The gynapter. — ^The Chinese fishing for these animals. 

The almost infinite life of the sea offers analogies to the life of 
the land in a thousand forms, and among them there is none more 
curious than what may be called the swine of the ocean. The 
curious order of sea animals known as echinoderms derives the 
name from two Greek words indicating an animal bristling with 
spines like the hedgehog. These creatures are sometimes free, 
sometimes attached by a stem, flexible or otherwise, and radiating 
after the manner of a circle or star, or again of the shape of a star 
with more or less elongated arms, which secrete shell-like plates, 
and are covered with spines, scales, etc. The most common of the 
echinoderms is the starfish, which no one who has ever lived long 
on the seashore has failed to observe. Like most of the lower 
animals, particularly the inhabitants of the sea, the starfish has 
the power of reproducing any limb which may be destroyed, and 
the habit of fishermen, who cut them up and throw them over- 
board, hoping to free their oyster-beds from this destructive pest, 
only augments their number many fold and increases the evil 
sought to be prevented. 

When one sees a starfish stranded on the shore, the first notion 
is that it is immovable. But, so far from this being the case, it 



THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 



51 




moves along the sea bottom with great ease. It is, in fact, pro- 
vided with a special apparatus for locomotion. The upper portion 
of the starfish (a misnomer, for it is no more a fish than the bee or 
the caterpillar), or the " five-fingered Jack," as sailors call it, is rough 
and tuberculous, ■ armed 
with spine - like projec- 
tions, while the under 
side is soft, containing 
all the organs of life and 
movement. The rays or 
arms of the starfish are 
usually kept on the same 
level, but the creature 
has the power of raising 
any of them to pass over 
an obstruction. It thus 
ascends elevations with 
the same ease apparently 
with which it moves on 
a level. The rays are perforated by membranous tubes which issue 
from apertures. These are the feet of the animal, and consist of 
two parts, a bladder-like portion placed within the body, and the 
tubular part projecting outside and terminating in a disk-shaped 
sucker. The feet are thus muscular cylinders, hollow in the cen- 
ter and very extensible. In progression the animal extends a few 
of its feet, attaches its suckers to the rocks or stones, and then, by 
retracting its feet, draws the body forward. The mode of move- 
ment is something like that of a ship dragging its anchor. The 
pace is slow, but, like that of the tortoise, it is sure, and the most 
singular fact is that it must perceive obstructions, for it immedi- 
ately prepares to surmount them. 

In addition to its organs of digestion and movement, the star- 
fish has blood-vessels, a breathing apparatus, and a nervous system, 
though the latter must be of a very low order, if we may judge by 
its apparent capacity of suffering vivisection without pain. One of 



STARFISH OX A ROCK. 



52 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

the most interesting traits about this lowly organized creature is 
its instinctive devotion to its young. The eggs are contained in 
little pouches placed at the base of the rays ; and, when emitted 
through an opening, the mother star, instead of abandoning them, 
gathers them together, and forms a kind of protecting arch over 
them, like a hen brooding over her chickens. If the eggs are acci- 
dentally scattered, they are brought together again with great care. 
The experiment has frequently been tried in an aquarium, and the 
mother will be seen to travel the whole distance of the tank till she 
finds and recovers the scattered ova. 

Power of reproduction, though, is not limited to eggs. In com- 
mon with some/ of the other marine orders previously noticed, the 
starfish has the strange capacity of detaching one or more of its 
rays, and each of the cast-off members becomes by and by a perfect 
creature of its kind ; while a new ray will grow in the place of the 
one lost, equipped with all the complete organs necessary. It takes 
from twelve to fifteen weeks for the star thus to reproduce a lost 
part ; but, in the mean time, the animal seems to be perfectly con- 
tented, and not to know the difference. As starfishes are found 
upon the shore,, they often appear to be quite dead when they are 
really alive ; they are the opossums of the sea. " Take up one of 
these fellows who is lying perfectly still, and put him into fresh 
sea-water, and he will very likely soon be traveling about as well 
as ever. However, as the dead and living, when left stranded by 
the tide, present so nearly the same appearance, it may be well to 
have some test by which to make sure of their true condition. 
There are two modes of ascertaining this with a reasonable degree 
of certainty. If, on taking up a starfish, it hangs loose and 
limp, it is dead ; but, however dead it may look, if on touching 
it there are a firmness and consistency in the substance, it is only 
'playing 'possum,' and will revive in the water. The other mode 
of trial is to lay our starry friend on its back, when, if it is alive, 
you will soon see a number of semi-transparent globular objects be- 
ginning to move, reaching this way and that, as if feeling for some- 
thing ; these are the locomotory organs, or ambulacra, seeking to 



THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 53 

regain their normal position. If there is no movement of these, you 
may conclude that it is an extinguished star." 

Like all the other inhabitants of the sea, the starfish has an 
appetite which is never satiated, and a dinner is always welcome. 
Its sole occupation is to feed itself, and it is a sea scavenger which 
keeps up an incessant chase after all kinds of dead animal matter. 
So it is probable, that these creatures contribute largely to keeping 
the waters of the ocean in a pure state. But they do not confine 
themselves to decaying matter. Any kind of mollusk is a favorite 
tidbit, from the humble whelk, only about five eighths of an inch 
long, to the lordly and luscious 
oyster. The oyster-beds have 
no more inveterate ravagers and 
brigands to disturb their serene 
existence, man excepted, than the 
starfishes. 

This little being, formed of 
five arms, and with no other ap- 
parent organ, accomplishes a work 
which man, unaided, is quite un- 
able to execute : it opens an oys- 
ter neatly and effectively without 
an oyster-knife, and then swal- 
lows the flesh of the bivalve in the same manner as the human being 
at the oyster-shop. If man had no other means of subsistence than 
oysters, and were without a knife to open them, it would most assur- 
edly puzzle him, with all his genius, to get at the savory morsel 
shut up in its obstinate shell. 

It was formerly believed that the starfish waited for the moment 
when the oyster would open its valves to introduce one of its rays 
into the opening. It was imagined that, having thus put one foot 
into the other's domicile, it soon got the other four in, and fin- 
ished by devouring the inhabitant. This view is not now held. 
In order to obtain possession of and swallow an oyster, it appears 
that the starfish begins its approaches by bringing its mouth to 




SERPENT, OR BRITTLE STARFISH. 



54 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



the closed edges of the oyster shell. This done, with the assistance 
of a particular liquid, which its mouth secretes, it injects a few 
drops of an acid liquid between the shells, which forces the oyster 
to opens its valves. The robber then crawls in and eats his dessert. 
Professor Rymer Jones explains the process differently. According 
to him, the oyster is seized between the rays of the ravisher, and 
held under the mouth by the aid of the suckers. The Asteria, or 
starfish, then everts or turns its stomach inside out, and envelopes 
the whole oyster in its interior recesses, doubtlessly distilling a 
poisonous liquid which causes the shell to open. The incredible 
number of oysters destroyed by starfishes is well known to oyster- 
men, though they do not know that their own barbaric ignorance is 
largely to blame. Starfishes drawn up in rakes, nets, and dredges 
in large quantities are tied in bundles, and the cord drawn so tight 
as to cut through the pile. The result is that all the pieces, when 
thrown overboard, become new and perfect starfishes. 

Belonging to the same group as the starfishes are the brittle 

starfish and the basket-fish, 
both of them being found 
all along the Atlantic coast, 
as well as in other waters. 
The former has long, slen- 
der arms, nearly cylindrical 
in form, attached to a small, 
disk-like body. The arms 
are very loosely connected 
with the body, and are 
thrown off when the crea- 
ture is frightened. Indeed, 
the fragility is such that it 
will crumble up in the fin- 
gers when taken out of the 
water. All of the starfishes appear to have the power of break- 
ing themselves to pieces, or committing suicide, when fright- 
ened, though, if the pieces are immediately thrown back into 




BASKET-FISII. 



THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 



55 




SEA-EGG, OR SEA-URCHIN. 



the ocean water again, the separate parts all live and thrive as 
individuals. 

One of the most curious and beautiful among the echinoderms is 
the basket-fish. The development of the arms is so complex and 
intricate, interlacing each other in so many ways, and dividing up 
again into so many thou- 
sand slender appendages, 
that, as it floats on the 
ocean, it appears to be 
a delicate piece of lace 
moving in beautiful fes- 
toons over the tossing 
waves. Its thousands of 
waving filaments consti- 
tute thread-like weapons, 

intended to seize and close on the animals which serve as its prey. 
The arms are sometimes sixteen inches long, and from the curious 
interlacing of these is derived the name of basket-fish. 

From the starfishes let us pass to the sea-urchin, one of the 
queerest of sea animals in appearance, from the bristling armature 
of spikes which covers the body. In order to see the sea-urchin 
with its spines in full relief, it is necessary to see it as it lives, 
which, of course, must be for the most part in an aquarium. It is 
then that the sea-urchin can be seen as he is, bristling with prickles, 
and offering that formidable look which is his greatest protection. 

In these curious creatures the upper parts are protected by a 
kind of shell more or less dome-shaped, but extremely variable in 
form. The shell is one of the most marvelous structures in the ani- 
mal kingdom, and the mechanical difficulties overcome in its forma- 
tion of no ordinary kind. The shell is nearly globular, and increases 
in size with the age of the animal, but without altering its exact 
shape — a problem of no little difficulty. The shell is composed of 
a vast number of separate pieces, whose junction is only evident in 
the interior, being otherwise hidden from view by the projections 
on the outer surface. These are of an hexagonal shape, with a slight 



56 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

curve, and having mostly two opposite sides much longer than the 
others. With the growth of the animal, deposits of chalky matter 
are made on the edges of these plates, which thus keep their shape 
while the size enlarges. When a fresh specimen is examined, the 
surface is seen covered with short, sharp spines, thickly set like a 
hedge. Each spine is movable at will, and works in a perfect ball- 
and-socket joint, the ball being a round, globular projection on the 
surface, and the socket sunk into the base of the spine. When the 
creature is dead the spines fall off at a touch, but when living it can 
use these sharp-pointed thorns with powerful effect, as the rude 
intruder quickly finds. 

The sea-urchins appear to be destitute of sight. They hollow 
out places for themselves in the rock, even the hardest material, 
such as granite and sandstone, yielding to their strong teeth. The 
debris is removed with their spines, which they use as picks and 
shovels. When the hole is large enough, our prickly friend in- 
trenches himself, presenting a phalanx of fierce, threatening pikes 
to his enemies, and most rash assailants pay the penalty of inter- 
fering with the peace of this cunning little water-hog. It is only a 
few of the echinoderms which have the power to hollow out rocks, 
most of them seeking shelter under rocks and heavy marine plants. 
The species having the spines slender and the shells thin bury them- 
selves in the sand, with which they cover themselves entirely, leav- 
ing only a breathing place. " The urchin's relationship to the star- 
fish," says Mr. Damon, " may be illustrated by supposing that we 
bring all the five points of the star together, filling up the inter- 
stices with a similar substance ; we have then a complete urchin 
minus the spines. Or, take the peel whole off of an orange, divide it 
into fifths, and bring the points up together, sticking needles in to 
simulate the spines, and we have an urchin, at least in shape." The 
color of the sea-urchin is usually reddish-brown or black, and, while 
the body or ball part is not larger than a hen's egg (which it much 
resembles in shape), the spines are sometimes a foot long. " These 
animals," to quote Mr. Damon again, " are voracious vegetarians, 
eating off large fronds of the sea-lettuce and other plants, and clean- 



THE SWINE OF TEE OCEAN. 



57 




58 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

ing a tank of every vestige of vegetation in a very short time. 
Their motion in swimming is slow, and when walking on the side 
of a glass tank, which they do with perfect ease on their long, slen- 
der legs (which are terminated by cup-shaped disks, constructed on 
the same principle as a surgeon's cupping instrument), and aided by 
the spines, they certainly are an attractive sight, especially when 
all their spines and pedicles are in motion." 

The sea-urchin fully grown has not less than twelve hundred 
prominent spines, as well as many more subsidiary ones. They at- 
tach themselves to any object by means of suckers. They travel 
with equal ease and rapidity on their backs or on their stomachs, 
and sometimes advance by turning on themselves like a wheel in 
motion. To see this bristling creature in movement, one might 
fancy a chestnut bur on its travels. The mouth, placed underneath 
the body, is armed with five sharp teeth, and makes a truly formi- 
dable apparatus, competent to eat through the hardest rock, and to 
grind up crustaceans, such as crabs and shrimps, as easily as sea- 
fronds. Almost impervious to attack, the sea-urchin is voracious 
and aggressive, and is a terror to the small fish, crabs, mussels, etc., 
with which it comes in contact ; for, like the land hog, which it re- 
sembles, it is equally partial to flesh and vegetable food. 

Sea-urchins are found in every sea, dwelling in sandy bottoms 
and on rocky ground. They are caught with wooden pincers, or 
may be taken with a thickly gloved hand. Like the crab, which it 
resembles in taste, the sea-urchin becomes red when boiled. It is 
also eaten raw, like the oyster, the flesh being taken out with a 
spoon. When it is dressed by boiling, the flesh may be eaten from 
the shell with a spoon, like an egg ; hence the name of sea-eggs. 

Sea-eggs were a choice dish upon the tables of the Greeks and 
Romans ; they were then served up with vinegar or hydromel, with 
the addition of mint or parsley. When Lentulus feasted the priest 
of Mars — the Flamen Martialis — this formed the first dish at sup- 
per. Sea-eggs also appeared at the marriage feast of the goddess 
Hebe. " Afterward," says the poet, " came crabs and sea-urchins, 
which do not swim in the sea, but content themselves by traveling 



THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 



59 



on the sandy shore." " For my own part," says Figuier, in the 
" Ocean World," " I have only once partaken of sea-urchin, and it 
appeared to me to be food fit for the gods ; but perhaps the cir- 
cumstances sufficiently explain this dash of .culinary enthusiasm. 
The Reserve Restaurant at Marseilles has not always been the vast 
stone edifice we now behold, backed majestically by the mountain, 
and fronting the sea on the promenade of the Corniche du Prado. 
In 1845 it rose quite at the entrance of the port, a small glass cage, 
suspended as it were by a magic thread between the heavens and 
the sea. From this aerial dwelling, overhanging with unheard-of 
audacity the waters which surrounded it on all sides, we gazed on 
the most wonderful prospect in the world, and reposed ourselves, 
while enjoying this intoxicating scene, during which the shij^s w T ere 
continually entering the port, passing under our very feet. It was 
in this enchanted palace that sea-urchins were served up, supported 
by the traditional bouil- 
iabaise." 

Another sea creature 
belonging to the same or- 
der is the sea-cucumber, 
for in its shape it is re- 
markably like that well- 
known vegetable. It pre- 
sents the shape of an 
elongated and worm-like 
cylinder, with variable 
dimensions, from two to 
thirty inches in length. 
The skin is armed with 
projecting hooks, which 
serve alike as weapons 

and supports, for they have suckers at their ends. The mouth is 
at the end of the body, and it is crowned with a row of bril- 
liantly colored tentacles, which make it look like the corolla of 
a flower. These are extended at will for the purpose of grasping 





SEA-CUCUMBER. 



60 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

food and conveying it to the mouth ; but, the food being brought 
within reach, only one of these feelers is occupied in actually in- 
troducing it within the orifice, while the others remain passive, and 
appear to be waiting their turn to do the same service. Mrs. Agassiz 
has likened this group of tentacles in the sea cucumber to some of 
the " delicate seaweeds, for their fineness of structure and the rich- 
ness of their colors." These animals, besides the curious power of 
multiplying themselves by fissure, have the still more remarkable 
capacity of emptying themselves of nearly all their internal organs, 
and after a brief time of reproducing them and living on as com- 
fortably as ever. The sea-cucumber is a favorite article of food 
among the nations of the East, and the fishery plays an important 
part in the commerce and industry of China. Thousands of junks 
are annually equipped for the " trepang " (so the sea-cucumber is 
called when prepared as food) fishery. The importance of the in- 
dustry is indicated by the fact that Madagascar alone sends two 
hundred vessels to the fishery. 

The Synapta is closely allied to the sea-cucumber, but is distin- 
guished from the others by the absence of feet, and by the fact 
that it unites both sexes in the same individual. 

" Imagine," says M. Quatrefages, (i a cylinder of rose-colored 
crystal, as much as eighteen inches long and more than an inch in 
diameter, traversed in all its length by five narrow ribbons of white 
silk, and its head surmounted by a living flower, whose twelve ten- 
tacles of purest white fall behind in a graceful curve. In the cen- 
ter of these tissues, which rival in their delicacy the most refined 
products of the loom, imagine an intestine of the thinnest gauze 
gorged from one end to the other with coarse grains of granite, the 
rugged points and sharp edges of which are perfectly perceptible 
to the naked eye. 

" But what most struck me at first in this animal was, that it 
seemed literally to have no other nourishment than the coarse sand 
by which it was surrounded. And then, when, armed with scalpel 
and microscope, I ascertained something of its organization, what 
unheard-of marvels were revealed ! In this body, the walls of 



THE SWINE OF THE OCEAN. 



61 




62 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

which scarcely reach the sixteenth part of an inch in thickness, I 
could distinguish seven distinct layers of tissue, with a skin, mus- 
cles, and membranes. Upon the tentacles I could trace terminal 
suckers, which enabled the synapta to crawl up the side of a most 
highly polished vase. In short, this creature, denuded to all ap- 
pearance of every means of attack or defense, showed itself to be 
protected by a species of mosaic, formed of small calcareous shield- 
like defenses, bristling with double hooks, the points of which, 
notched like the arrows of the Caribbeans, had taken hold of my 
hands." 

If one of these synaptas is preserved alive in sea-water for a 
short time, and subjected to a forced fast, a very strange thing 
will be observed. The animal, being unable to feed itself, suc- 
cessively detaches various parts of its own body, which it ampu- 
tates spontaneously. A great compression or ring is first formed, 
and then the separation of the condemned, part takes place quite 
suddenly. " It would appear," says M. Quatref ages, " that the 
animal, feeling that it had not sufficient food to support its whole 
body, was able successively to abridge its dimensions, by suppress- 
ing the parts which it would be most difficult to support, just as 
we should dismiss the most useless mouths from a besieged city." 

This singular mode of meeting a famine is employed by the 
synapta up to the last moment. After a few days all that remains 
of the animal is a round ball surrounded by tentacles. In order to 
preserve life in the head, all the other parts of the body have been 
sacrificed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 

A curious and dangerous sea animal. — Victor Hugo's description of the " devil-fish."— 
Early traditions of the kraaken. — Huge cephalopods seen of recent years. — Descrip- 
tion of the octopus. — Character, habits, food.— Method of seizing its prey, etc. — 
Anecdotes of adventures with the octopus. — Different varieties of the octopus. — 
The cuttle-fish, and its peculiarities.— Something about the argonaut or paper nautilus. 

Among the widely diversified class of marine creatures known 
as mollusks, there is none so interesting and captivating to the im- 
agination as the cuttle-fish, squid, and other cephalopods, as they are 
called in science, from two Greek words, which in their combina- 
tion mean " feet proceeding from a head," the most common form 
of which in our own seas is the octopus. Victor Hugo, in his re- 
markable novel of "The Toilers of the Sea," gives us a pictu- 
resquely terrible narrative of a conflict of his hero with one of 
these grewsome monsters of the deep. That portion of it which 
describes the octopus, under the name of pieuvre, or the " devil- 
fish," the titles given by the fishermen of the Channel Islands to 
this formidable creature, is worthy of quotation in this connec- 
tion, though the poetic exaggeration of the novelist, justified by 
art purposes, can hardly be indorsed by science. M. Hugo thus 
writes : 

" To believe in the existence of the devil-fish, one must have 
seen it. Compared to it, the ancient hydras were insignificant. 
Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, only imagined the chimsera, Providence 
created the octopus. If terror was the object of its creation, it is 
perfection. The devil-fish has no muscular organization, no breast- 
plate, no horn, no dart, no tail with which to hold or bruise, no cut- 
ting fins or wings with claws ; no prickles, no sword, no electric 



64 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



discbarge, no venom, no talons, no beak, no teetb. It bas no bones, 
no blood, no flesh. It is soft and flabby, a skin with nothing inside 
of it. Its under surface is yellowish, its upper earthy. Its dusty 




EIGHT-ARMED CUTTLE-FISH. 



hue can neither be imitated nor explained. It might be called a 
beast made of ashes which inhabits the water. Irritated, it be- 
comes violet. It is a spider in form, a chameleon in coloration. 
. . . Seized by this animal, you enter into the beast, the hydra in- 
corporates itself with the man ; the man is amalgamated with the 
hydra. You become one. The tiger can only devour you ; the 
devil-fish inhales you. He draws you to him, into him ; and, bound 
and helpless, you feel yourself slowly emptied into the frightful 
sac, which is a monster. To be eaten alive is more than terrible ; 
but to be drunk alive is inexpressible." 

Before the publication of Victor Hugo's description, which, 
making allowance for certain inaccuracies and overwrought no- 
tions, is sufficiently just to convey some true idea of the octopus, 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 65 



GIGANTIC SQUID, CAPTURED BY THE STEAM CORVETTE ALECTON. 



6Q 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



the knowledge of this animal among scientific men was limited. 
It had been known in a vague way since the time of Aristotle, but 




THE GIANT SQUID. 



the remarkable stories which have come down to us had been treated 
by modern scientific men with contempt, as being mere legends, 
unworthy of credence or even of investigation. Pliny relates that 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 67 

an enormous cuttle-fish was taken on the coast of Spain which 
measured thirty feet long in its arms, and the body of which 
weighed seven hundred pounds. Olaus Magnus and Denis de 
Montfort, naturalists during the Middle Ages, described a gigantic 
animal of the Northern Seas, under the name of the kraaken, which 
often made ships founder by its attack. Pontoppidan, Bishop of 
Bergen, in one of his books assures us that a whole regiment of 
soldiers could easily manoeuvre on the back of the kraaken, which 
he compares to a floating island. 

In 1853 a colossal octopus was stranded on the coast of Jutland, 
whose body, being dismembered, made a great many wheelbarrow 
loads, its pharynx, or back part of the mouth, being as large as the 
head of an infant. Another extraordinary and apparently well- 
authenticated account is given by Lieutenant Bayer, of the French 
steam corvette Alecton, and M. Berthelot, the French consul at the 
Canaries, to whom the report was made, and who forwarded it to 
the French Academy. 

The steam corvette Alecton was between Teneriffe and Madeira 
when she fell in with a gigantic calamar or squid, not less — accord- 
ing to the account — than fifteen metres (fifty feet) long, without 
reckoning its eight formidable arms, covered with suckers, and 
about twenty feet in circumference at its largest part, the head 
terminating in many arms of enormous size, the other extremity 
in two fleshy lobes or fins of great size, the weight of the whole 
being estimated at four thousand pounds ; the flesh was soft, glu- 
tinous, and of reddish -brick color. 

The commandant, wishing in the interests of science to secure 
the monster, actually engaged it in battle. Numerous shots were 
aimed at it, but the balls traversed its flaccid and glutinous mass 
without causing it any vital injury. But after one of these attacks 
the waves were observed to be covered with foam and blood, and, 
singular thing, a strong odor of musk was inhaled by the specta- 
tors. This musk odor is peculiar to many of the cephalopods. 

The musket-shots not having produced the desired results, 
harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft, impal- 



68 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

pable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the har- 
poon, it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. 
They succeeded at last in getting the harpoon to hold, and in pass- 
ing a bowling hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But 
when they attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope pene- 
trated deeply into the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the 
head with the arms and tentacles dropping into the sea and making 
off, while the fins and posterior parts were brought on board : they 
weighed about forty pounds. 

Rev. Mr. Harvey, of Newfoundland, published an account a 
few years ago of the adventure of two fishermen in Conception 
Bay. Their boat passed near what appeared to be a floating bale 
of goods, which was presumed to be flotsam from some wreck. One 
of them struck the mass with the boathook, when it instantly opened, 
like a gigantic umbrella without a handle, and a huge head, with 
fiery, threatening eyes that protruded ominously, and a long, curved 
beak, raised itself from the surface. While they stood paralyzed 
with fear, the monster flung at them a tentacle of livid, corpse-like 
hue thirty feet long, which went far beyond the boat, or they 
would have been engulfed. One of the fishermen seized a sharp 
hatchet, and by a well-directed blow severed this terrible lasso 
before another one could be used, on which the savage apparition 
of the sea swiftly darted backward, and was lost to sight amidst the 
ink-like discharge with which it blackened the waters. The ten- 
tacle was given to Mr. Harvey, and the fishermen avowed there 
must have been at least ten feet more of it next the body of their 
assailant. In this case, as in all the accounts of gigantic cephalo- 
pods, it is probable that the creature belonged rather to the squid 
species, than what is properly known as the octopus. 

The existence of these gigantic cephalopods — for such is the 
name which science gives to sea animals of this class — became a 
matter of interest to scientific men after the publication of Victor 
Hugo's romance ; and it has now become definitely established that 
the great squid is not only a verity, but one of the most formidable, 
in its equipment of attack and defense, produced by the immeas- 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 



69 



urable fecundity of the sea. If it existed in the same numbers as 
the shark, that ferocious and ravenous fish would be obliged to 
yield its prominence as the most dreadful denizen of the ocean 
waters. The octopus, and all its congeners, unlike other sea crea- 
tures, kill not merely for food, but appear to delight in killing for 
its own sake. True aquatic brigands, they are aggressive and 
daring to an extreme degree, though their favorite mode is to lie 
in wait for their victims. Nature, however, applies to them the 
law of retaliation. All the cuttle-fishes, from the smallest to the 
largest, are favorite food of the whale and dolphin, which attack 
them with impunity. Michelet says : " These lords of the ocean 
are so delicate in their taste that they eat only the heads and 
arms, which are tender and easy of digestion. The coast at Royan, 
for example, is covered with thousands of these mutilated cuttle- 
fish. The porpoises take most incredible bounds, at first to 
frighten them and afterward to run them down ; in short, after 
their feasts they give them- 
selves up to gymnastics." 

Within a few years some 
very large specimens of the 
octopus have been captured. 
Professor Spencer Baird 
says that the large speci- 
men which was preserved 
in the New York Aquarium 
is only an infant compared 
with the gigantic squid of 
the Pacific Ocean, that on 
which the sperm-whale is 
known to feed. One was 

cast ashore at Newfoundland, some years ago. with arms fifty feet 
long. One was observed in Beaufort Harbor, in 1862, which meas- 
ured thirty feet. Any one who has seen such a monstrous creature 
can readily conceive how it seizes its prey. The arms, eight, and in 
other cases ten, in number, form powerful pincers at their extreme 




OCTOPUS, OR DEVIL-FISH. 



70 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



ends, and are furnished the whole length with two rows of perfect 
sucking disks, or some two thousand air-pumps. The edges are 
also cut into sharp, saw-like teeth, hard as steel, which bury them- 
selves in the flesh of the victim. Such a sized octopus as those 
described above could throw these terrible lassos at least twenty- 
five feet, and draw the body of a man to the mouth, when, with its 
iron-like beak, it could crush the helpless form and swallow, or 
drink it down, to use Victor Hugo's words. 

The vulnerable portion of the octopus is the neck, and fishermen 
and others, who know their habits when attacked, always strive if 
possible to seize them by the throttle-valve, when they are easily 
killed. This is comparatively easy on land, but nearly impossible 
in the water. The locomotion of the devil-fish is as easy on land 
as in the water. They have been known frequently to run up per- 
pendicular cliffs, two hundred feet high, as easily as the fly runs up 
a wall, the machinery of attachment being very similar. They are 
said to move on land as fast as a man can run, and frequently pur- 
sue their prey out of the sea, though on the land they are far more 
timid than in their marine haunts. 

The long appendages are used both as arms and legs. All of 

the octopods swim freely 
at will, and associate in 
numbers, but the larger 
ones, as they become old- 
er, fly from community 
life and retire into the 
clefts and hollows of the 
rocks which have been 
worn by the waves, gen- 
erally in places only a few 
feet below the level of low water. There, with one arm clasped 
close to the wall of its dwelling, the watchful savage extends the 
others, alert, like the boa constrictor, for the approach of prey, and 
no less deadly in the crushing force of its folds. Its movements in 
seizing its victims are swift as an arrow. When the animal is swini- 




AN OCTOPUS RUXNIXG. 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 71 

ming, its long tentacles would be in the way. if extended or left 
pendant, so they are drawn close alongside and allowed to float 
behind, where they act as the tail to a kite. Motion in the water 
is gained by drawing in and expelling water from the locomotory 
tube. The octopus thus swims backward instead of forward. Its 
food consists of crustaceans, fishes, and other mollusks ; every kind 
of animal, in fact, which comes within its reach. But it disdains 
carrion flesh, and feeds only on living victims. The general life of 
the octopus, as of the other cuttle-fish, is about five or six years ; 
and it lays eggs, which are large and generally found in clusters. 
Fishermen call them sea-grapes. 

One singular peculiarity the cuttle-fish, in its different varieties, 
shares with man. It changes color with anger, passing through 
various tints, and only resuming the usual hue when the emotion 
has ceased. Not only does the octopus change color, but covers 
itself with pustules and excrescences when in a rage, increasing the 
repulsiveness of its appearance tenfold. 

Unpleasant adventures with " devil-fish," as they are popularly 
but erroneously called, are not uncommon. Major Newsome, R. E., 
was stationed on the African coast, in 1856-'57, and undertook one 
day to bathe in a pool. As he swam, something took hold of his 
ankle, and he could not detach himself till some fellow-bathers 
came to his assistance. He says: "As the grasp of an ordinary- 
sized octopus, holding to a rock, is not less than thirty pounds, 
while the floating power of a man is not more than five or six 
pounds, I believe, if I had not kept in mid-channel, it would have 
been a life-and-death struggle between myself and the beast on 
my ankle. In the open water I was the best man ; but near the 
bottom or sides, which he could have reached with his arms, but 
which I could not have reached with mine, he would certainly have 
drowned me." 

Mr. Beale, the naturalist, describes an adventure with a small 
octopus. He had been searching for shells among the rocks on 
Bonin Island, and was much astonished to see at his feet a most 
extraordinary-looking animal, crawling back toward the surf which 



72 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

it bad just left. It was creeping on its eight legs, which, from their 
soft and flexible nature, bent considerably under the weight of its 
body, so that it was just lifted by an effort above the rocks. It 
appeared much alarmed, and made every attempt to escape. Mr. 
Beale endeavored to stop it by putting his foot on one of his tenta- 
cles, but it liberated itself several times in spite of all his efforts. 
He then laid bold of one of the tentacles with his hand, and held it 
firmly, and the limb appeared as if it would be torn asunder in the 
struggle. To terminate the contest, he gave it a powerful jerk ; it 
resisted the effort successfully, but the moment after the enraged 
animal lifted a head with large projecting eyes, and, loosing its 
hold of the rocks, suddenly sprang upon Mr. Beale's arm, which 
had been previously bared to the shoulder, and clung to it with its 
suckers, while it endeavored to get the beak, which he could now 
see between the tentacles, in a position to bite him. Mr. Beale de- 
scribes its cold, slimy grasp as extremely sickening, and he loudly 
called to his friends, who were also searching for shells, to come to 
his assistance. They hastened to the boat, and he was released by 
killing his tormentor with a boat-knife, when the arms were disen- 
gaged bit by bit. Mr. Beale says that this cephalopod must have 
measured across its expanded arms about four feet, while its body 
was not bigger than a large hand clenched. It was the species 
called the rock-squid by whalers. 

The species known as the octopus tuberculata, from its being 
covered with repulsive excrescences, not dependent on the will of 
the animal, is found in the Mediterranean, and is prized for food in 
the markets of Smyrna and Naples. It is said to make a delicious 
soup, something in taste like the green turtle, and the head is 
served as a separate dish. Another variety of peculiar form has 
been discovered by Professor Verrill, of Yale College, in the Bay 
of Fundy, and named by him octopus Bairdii, after Professor 
Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution. The latter animal has only 
short, broad tentacles, and appears not to grow to a large. size, but 
is in all other respects in organization and habits like the common 
octopus. 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC 73 




OCTOPUS TUBERCULATA. 



Like so many of the orders of marine life, the octopus will 
reproduce any portion of its arms at whatever point it may be 
severed, and some female 
specimens which have k 

been examined show the 
loss and reproduction of 
all the eight arms. When 
it grows too large for its 
skin, it sheds it like the 
crab, and the existence 
of these remains is nearly 
always indicative of the 
presence of the octopus. 

The reproductive func- 
tions of this animal are 
exercised in a way no less 
peculiar than the animal 

is in other respects. At certain times there appears on one of the 
arms of the male octopus a queer sort of bunch. When Mr. Octo- 
pus would a-wooing go, he offers his hand in marriage to a lady 
octopus, who literally takes it and walks away with it. This singu- 
lar outgrowth contains the gen- 
erative quality, which serves 
the purpose of propagation. 
The female watches her eggs 
with the greatest care and de- 
votion, and woe be unto the 
creature who approaches, if it 
be her own mate, who, by the 
way, has a sneaking fondness 
for devouring his own offspring. 
The number of eggs laid is im- 
mense, there being often fifty 
thousand in a single bunch. It 
octopus bairdii (life size). is singular that the egg, when 




74: 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




SEPIA OFFICINALIS AND SHELL. 



nearly ready to give exit to the 'young octopus, displays the little 
creature under the microscope alive, swimming in the shell, and show- 
ing the same phases of cha- 
meleon color when disturbed 
noticeable in the parent. The 
period of incubation is about 
fifty days, and it is not un- 
common for the mother to die 
from exhaustion during the 
time. 

The nearest relations of the 
octopus are the sepia officina- 
lis, or cuttle-fish, and the com- 
mon squid, which resembles 
the cuttle-fish in having ten 
arms instead of eight and the possession of the ink bag. It is the 
cuttle which produces the peculiar bone so much in demand for 
captive birds and the coloring fluid known as sepia ink. The 
cuttle, instead of having 
only eight arms, has ten, 
eight short and two long, 
and is far less treacherous 
and dangerous. Instead 
of springing like a tiger 
from its jungle lair, it 
seeks its prey boldly in 
the open sea. It is, how- 
ever, very voracious, and 
fishermen dread its pres- 
ence in their nets, for it 
bites and mutilates the 
other fish savagely. It 

is far less formidable than the octopus, however, and uses as its 
principal means of defense the sepia bag, from which it ejects a 
copious discharge which discolors the water and allows the creature 




PAPER NAUTILUS. 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 75 




ARGONAUT WITHOUT THE SHELL. 



to escape. An English officer at Brighton, England, some years 
ago, having dressed for dinner, spent the brief interval before the 
hour of his engagement in walking on the beach. Seeing a curi- 
ous animal in the hollow of a rock, he watched it, while the cuttle 
stared at him with big projecting eyes. Suddenly a huge jet of inky 
fluid was directed against 
him, completely spoiling 
the white trousers which 
he wore as summer uni- 
form. Sepia ink is an in- 
destructible color, and is 
used in many of the indus- 
trial arts. 

. The eyes of the cuttle 
are so solid as to be almost 

calcareous. They are exceedingly beautiful, and reflect light with 
a splendid play of color, like an opal. They are used for necklace 
beads in Italy, and are highly valued objects for the jeweler's art. 
The squid resembles both the octopus and cuttle-fish, having much 
of the ferocity of the former and the ink bag of the latter. It is 

of a broad oval form with 
; , /, two plainly defined necks, 

'^^yy ^ ' i^ z j^^ :% one inserted within the 
other, so that the head is 
not unlike that of the tur- 
tle. In many countries 
the squid and cuttle-fish 
are regarded as delicate 
articles of diet, though 
modern gastronomers have 
been unable to cultivate a taste for them. In both ancient Greece 
and Rome they were regarded as tidbits, and much prized for lux- 
urious dinners. 

Another cousin of the fierce and ugly " devil-fish " is the beau- 
tiful argonaut, or paper nautilus. This little animal has been the 




AKGONAUT WITH THE SHELL. 



76 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



prolific source of poetic fables, and the ancient naturalists, by their 
descriptions, sanctioned the idea that the nautilus, rising to the 
surface of the water, spread its sails, and like a fairy ship glided 
before the passing zephyr. But modern discoveries have destroyed 




THE ARGONAUT. 



this pretty fiction. The argonaut is a cephalopod, having eight 
arms, like the octopus, covered with a double row of suckers. Of 
these tentacles, six are narrow and tapering, while two expand 
toward the extremity in the form of wings or sails. The body 



THE OCTOPUS, CUTTLE-FISH, ARGONAUT, ETC. 77 

itself is contained in a white fragile shell, which is oval, flattened 
on the exterior, but rolled up on a large spiral in the interior, the 
last turn of the shell giving it something of the form of a beauti- 
fully shaped shallop. It is singular that the body of the animal 
does not penetrate the interior, nor is it attached by any muscular 
ligament. Respiration is effected by the passage of the water 
over the double rows of gills or suckers, and the fluid is then 
ejected through a long tube or siphon ; and it is the passage of 
the water through this tube by which action of movement is ef- 
fected, exactly as in the case of the octopus. The argonaut, 
though very timid, is almost as dangerous an animal to handle as 
the formidable cousin of whom we have spoken at length. It re- 
sents familiarity in the most unmistakable fashion. 

The shell of the argonaut is not, like that of the hermit-crab, a 
home which it has picked up, but a part of the creature itself, 
though the body is completely separate. The miniature shell has 
been seen in the embryo when examined under the microscope. 
This shell is the beautiful cradle in which the mother carries her 
young, and in which they are rocked by the waves. It is only the 
sea-voyager who ever sees the argonaut, for they are denizens of 
the open deep. They live in flocks hundreds of miles from shore, 
and their fairy barks are generally only seen at sunset or by moon- 
light, as they appear to shrink from the garish light of the sun. 
The ancient mariners regarded this little creature as a favorable 
omen of serene weather, as a tutelary divinity who guarded the 
navigator in his course, and under its lead would boldly sail far 
away from land on the open sea. The classic poets are full of 
graceful allusions to the fact. 

It is not uncommon for the sailor to observe a fleet of a hun- 
dred of these beautiful creatures sailing over the calm sunset seas 
and decked in a thousand brilliant colors. At the slightest alarm, 
they fold their sails and sink down to the bottom of the seas. All 
lovers of English literature are familiar with Holmes's charming- 
poem entitled " The Nautilus," wherein he describes the appear- 
ance of this interesting little navigator of the ocean tides. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOME QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 

The strange fish forms. — Sea-horse and its habits. — Some of the most bizarre shapes of 
ocean life.— /The electric fishes, torpedo, gymnotus, etc. — The turtles. — Seals, their 
habits and characteristics. — How they are hunted. — The walrus. — Their importance 
to the Esquimaux. — The pursuit of this animal. — Narwhals. — The sea-cat. — The 
tiger of the ocean. — The white shark, the most terrible scourge of its kind. — Charac- 
ter and habits. — Shark fishing. — Hammer-headed shark. — The saw-fish and sword- 
fish. — The whale, the larger denizen of the seas. — The right or baleen whale. — Sperm- 
whale. — Whale fishing, and the method of capture. — The manatee and dugong. 

The vast and boundless ocean is fascinating to the imagination 
of man in all its external phenomena ; but to the scientific thought 
it is equally attractive in the wonderful abundance of life hidden 
under its blue waters. We have already called attention to some 
of the interesting forms of animal life which, with an infinite va- 
riety of form and color, make up such a wonderful world. Let us 
now find instruction and amusement in considering some of the 
more curious and interesting fishes which inhabit the waters. 

The sea-horse, scientifically known as the hippocampus, is a 
unique little creature which rarely attains a length of more than six 
inches, and gets its popular name from the fact that the structure 
and pose of the head and neck bear a striking resemblance to 
the horse. The ancients, who found so much of their theogeny in 
the sea and its creatures, believed that this animal was the embryo 
of the horses of Neptune. The parts of the sea-horse which most 
resemble the real horse are totally different in structure and func- 
tion. Following the outline of the fish, we discover that the part 
of the head which resembles the jaw of the horse is in reality the 
breathing apparatus or gills of the fish, and the nostrils, instead of 
being at the end of the snout, are close below the eyes, while the 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



79 




THE SEA-HOESE. 

Father of the family turnino; adrift his babv colt: 



mouth opens upward instead of lengthwise. Along the back is a 
structure looking like a mane, but this is really the tin, which is the 
only means of progression for the little fellow, as it has no caudal fin. 

Yet, though in one sense 
a fish, the sea-horse differs 
from all other fishes in one 
important particular, for, 
properly speaking, it has 
no tail such as is found in 
all other fishes. The ob- 
ject of the tail in other 
fishes is to act as a rudder 
or sculling-oar, but in the 
sea-horse, while the tail has 
the same bony and mus- 
cular structure, it is pro- 
longed far backward and 
curved in a downward di- 
rection, being as prehensile as the caudal appendage of a ring- 
tailed monkey. The sea-horse has only a single fin on the back, 
and a pair of fins on the side of his head, and it moves about 
by the aid of these imperfect propellers with an even, gliding 
motion. Owing to the place of these fins, the sea-horse always 
swims in an horizontal position. The prehensile tail is used to 
clasp around objects, and it seizes hold of almost anything, such 
as weeds or other floating substances, and supports itself. The 
little sea-horse, instead of being ridden like his earthly namesake, 
thus gets a good many free rides for nothing. It uses the tail 
on the same principle by which the monkey is actuated, or the 
elephant in using his proboscis. This delicate creature is very do- 
cile and intelligent, too, and there is something almost human in 
the brightness of its eyes, especially as it has the power of moving 
the head and eyes independently of the body, which gives a pecul- 
iar kind of knowingness to its glance. 

While the sea-horse produces its young from eggs, it is quite 




80 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

exceptional among the fishes, that it hatches them in a pouch con- 
sisting of a double fold of skin on the abdomen, bearing in this 

respect some likeness to 
the kangaroo and opossum. 
They are carried here till 
the little fellows are able 
to swim and look out for 
themselves. But, singular 

AMERICAN TOAD-FISH. 

to say, it is the male and 
not the female^ which performs this interesting function. Once 
emancipated, however, the infant sea-horse does not return to its 
shelter. The nearest approach to the sea-horse is a species of fly- 
ing fish, which somewhat resembles it in shape. 

There are few uglier denizens of the sea than the toad-fish, and, 
seen on the shore, it might almost be mistaken for the reptile from 
which it is named, if one didn't see the body and fins. It is almost 
all head, a very unprepossessing head too, and the olive color mot- 
tled with green adds to the repulsiveness of its appearance. The 
flesh is said, however, to be of a delicate flavor, though most fisher- 
men throw them away on account of their uninviting looks. The 
toad-fish is found in all the Atlantic waters from Maine to the Gulf 
of Mexico, and presses its attentions on the fishermen as if it re- 
garded itself as a most desirable catch. This fish is so careful of 
its eggs that it deposits them on stones and sticks, and cements 
them fast in regular order to prevent their being washed away. 
The parent watches very devotedly till the fry is hatched out. One 
of the most interesting facts in the study of all the lower orders of 
animal life is the strong development of the parental instinct. 

Ugly as the toad-fish is, however, it must yield the palm of 
hideousness to the angler-fish. This villainous-looking creature is 
about four feet long, and is blessed with a large head and an enor- 
mous mouth, a provision very comfortable to itself and very an- 
noying to other fishes, for the angler-fish has an omnivorous appe- 
tite, and is perpetually dining. A great variety of names have 
been given to it, as, for example, " fishing frog," " sea-devil," the 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



81 



" bellows," " goose," " monk-fish," etc. One of the most curious 
facts about the angler-fish is that which gives occasion to the name. 
This cunning hypocrite has projecting from the upper part of his 
snout a curiously long, flexible, curved spine, tipped with a bit 
of glittering membrane which looks like the shiner on the end of 
a fishing-line. Burying itself in an ambush of mud or sand, this 




THE ANGLIIR-FISII. 



fish, turned fisherman, lies in wait as patiently as Izaak Walton, 
until some unwary small fish nibbles at the seemingly dainty mor- 
sel. Then snap ! go the great jaws, and the little fellow is swal- 
lowed. The immense voracity of the " angler " is one reason why 
he is sought by fishermen, who desire him not for the sake of him- 
self but of the small fish which cram his stomach till it is puffed 
out of all due size. The angler-fish's fishing-line is a unique con- 



82 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



trivance. It is one of several movable spines rising from the back 
of the bead, arranged somewhat on the plan of a hook and staple, 
and it can be swayed in any direction at the will of the fish. So, 




THE ANGLER-FISH CATCHES A LOON. 



if it is tired and lazy, the fish does not need to go prowling and 
hunting for a meal, but takes it easy in the ambuscade of mud in 
which it hides, and waves the bait temptingly back and forth. 

The beautiful adaptation 
of nature in this bony ap- 
paratus to help the ugly 
fellow to a dinner with- 
out putting him to any 
trouble is a most curious 
fact. The angler-fish is 
only found north of the 
capes of the Delaware. 
Another big-headed, truculent-looking fish is known as the sea- 
raven. It always looks as the traditional Paddy might in the days 
of Donnybrook Fair just after a tough bout with the blackthorn. 




COMMON SEA-RAVEN. 



QUEER WAXDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 83 

The fins and head always look torn and disfigured, but in beauty 
of color this fish is quite remarkable. The skin is of a rich velvety 
texture with spots of white and brown. Mr. Damon humorously 
describes it as " reminding one strongly of some of those astonish- 
ing Japanese work's of art in the shape of dragons, and, like these 
latter, the sea-raven is principally mouth ! like the end man in a 
negro-minstrel show." This fish is valuable for the aquarium, not 
only on account of its odd appearance and fine coloration, but it is 
very hardy and can be easily raised. 

Under the name of the skate or ray are included many varie- 
ties, such as the clear-nose, the spotted, the whip, the prickly tailed 
or sting ray, and the smooth skate. They are rarely eaten, as the 
substance of the meat is gelatinous and the flavor not agreeable, 
but they are caught and hung up for show, as they have a most 
quaint and amusing expression, almost like that of a pouting 
child. This resemblance to the human face has often been ob- 
served by naturalists, but certainly there is no further analogy, for 
the ray is one of the most stupid fish that swims the seas. The 
whip ray is named for the use it makes of its long narrow tail, from 
five to six feet in length, which is quite a formidable weapon in 
time of need, as the ray wields it like a flail. The tail of the sting 
ray is beset with fine sharp spines which are capable of giving a 
severe wound. In Southern waters the great quantity of these 
sting rays sometimes makes it unpleasant for bathers, for the fish 
is prone to make acquaintance with the naked skin of man in a 
way more impressive than agreeable. The smooth ray is distin- 
guished by an entire absence of this prickly exterior, and is a 
harmless fish. One of the most curious facts connected with the 
ray or skate is in the shape of the eggs. Unlike other fish, they 
produce eggs of an oblong shape with four ribbon-like threads 
attached to each corner. With these ribbons, assisted by a mucus 
secreted for the purpose, the parent skate attaches the eggs to 
alga?, stones, or rocks. Persons often pick up these empty shells 
on the seashore, after the young rays have been hatched, and they 
are sometimes called sailor's purses. 



81 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




PUFFER, OR SWELL-FISH. 



There are several very curious fishes known under the head 
of the sea-porcupine, which are by no means beauties, though 
they putt' themselves out with as much importance as if they were 
the " swells " of the ocean 
world. The skin is thick, 
leathery, and armed with 
spines in every direction 
when the body is inflated 
by filling the stomach 
with air. When thus dis- 
tended the fish loses all 
command over its fins, and 

floats about, belly upward, at the command of the winds and waves, 
and it is some time before it can expel enough air to get full con- 
trol of its movements again. The flesh of some of them is poison- 
ous, and there is a very disagreeable odor, which clings to them 

even w T hen they are pre- 
served in spirits. Sev- 
eral fishes of this order, 
classified as balloon-fish, 
are found on the coast of 
the United States, while 
some are only found in 
tropical waters. The 
spines of the balloon-fish 
are very long and sharp, 
and they inflict a poison- 
ous wound. Another fish 
nearly allied is the puff- 
er-fish. These fish, in all 
their varieties, sometimes 
grow three feet in length, 
and fishermen dread to get them on the hook or in the net, as they 
are very ugly customers to handle. The puffer-fish has shorter 
spines than the "balloon," but they are no less sharp. 




BALLOON-FISH. 



DEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



85 




COMMON SUNFISH, 



An exceedingly comical-looking customer is the great sunfish, 
for it is almost circular in shape, looking as if it had been cut off 
behind the dorsal fin, and the stump rounded off with a broad dor- 
sal fin. A lady's hand- 
kerchief bag, with two 
wings spread out on the 
sides, would be a fair rep- 
resentative of the shape 
of the sunfish. It grows 
sometimes five feet in 
length by four feet in 
depth, and weighs sever- 
al hundred pounds. The 
oil of the liver is much 
valued by sailors as a pan- 
acea for bruises and oth- 
er wounds. It is one of 
the most brilliant of the 

phosphorescent fish, and at night, w r hen it approaches the surface, 
the body flashes like a ball of living fire as it darts in irregular 
zigzag movements through the water. During the daytime it is 

very sluggish in its move- 
ments, and often sleeps 
on the surface of the 
waves. This fish is very 
much infested by para- 
sites both internally and 
externally. 

The lump-fish or lump- 
sucker is the hunchback 
of the seas, and has about 
as ugly a shape as any of 
his fellow-inhabitants of the water ; but it makes up for this by 
the extreme beauty of color and marking, and its grotesqueness is 
forgotten in the splendor of the hues. This is particularly the case 




^^i^fr 



LUMP-FISH. 



86 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



just before spawning-time, when all the tints of the painter's palette 
seem to be splashed on its body. It grows from eight to twenty 
inches in length, and not unfrequently attains a weight of eighteen 
pounds. A peculiarity of this fish is that by the ventral disk, which 
is concave, it can adhere closely to rocks, floating sticks, timbers, 
etc., and can even attach itself to other large fish with the tenacity 
of a vise. The lump-fish in this way can vary his experiences by 
traveling as a " dead -head," and he is not indisposed to use this 
privilege. Large fish have frequently been caught with the lump- 
fish attached to the back or belly. There are scattered tubercles, 
running posteriorly from the eyes, and these protuberances burn 
and glow with peculiarly rich colors during the time of its subma- 
rine nuptials. The lump-fish is very voracious, and swallows crabs 
and such mollusks as the oyster, clam, and muscle whole ; but this 
somewhat solid food by no means appears to disturb the digestive 
apparatus of the fish. 

The sea-mouse belongs to the sea centipedes, scientifically known 
as nereids, and looks more like a gigantic insect or a small reptile 

than a denizen of the sea. 
The body is like that of 
a centipede with many 
joints, and the creature 
both crawls and swims 
with great facility. The 
snout is armed with jaws 
and a pair of fine-fringed 
tentacles, with which the 
sea-mouse feels for its prey, which consists of living and dead ani- 
mal substances, such as marine worms, etc. The feet are numerous, 
each one having two tubercles and two bunches of bristles. These 
queer creatures live in crevices of rock, in sponges, corals, deserted 
shells, or sometimes burrow in mud or sand. The tropical species 
is vividly phosphorescent, and indeed the sea-mouse, everywhere it^ 
is found, is very beautiful. The back is covered with a flax-like 
substance, in which are mixed spines and soft bristles, the latter 




CMMOX SEA-MOUSE. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



87 



shining with all 
the hues of the 
rainbow, and ri- 
valing in its col- 
ors the luster 
of the humming- 
bird or the spark- 
ling of the most 
brilliant gems. 
There is great 
difficulty about 
preserving the 
sea-mouse in the 
aquarium, or it 
would be in great 
demand for this 
use, as its curious 
shape and hab- 
its combine with 
its matchless 
beauty of color 
to make it a 
most interesting 
object. 

The curious 
fish called the 
gar is also known 
as the sea-needle 
and mackerel 
guide. It is a 
fish about two 
feet long, some- 
what resembling 
the eel in shape, 
but covered with 




THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



gleaming scales, the back being of a bottle-green, the sides and the 
belly white. The brilliancy of this metallic armor is hardly to be 

described. One peculiarity 
of the fish is that its bones 
are green, and another that 
the head is supplied with a 
great beak like that of a 
woodcock. Each jawbone 
of this beak has two rows 
of keen teeth turning back- 
ward, with which the fish 
snaps fiercely everything 
that approaches, and not 
only is the beak thus armed, 
but the entrance to the stomach is also paved with teeth. The 
gar-pike is one of the most voracious fish of the ocean. 




GLOBE-FISH. 




WOLF-FISH. 



The globe-fish belongs to what are called the sea-porcupines, and 
is very strange in its shape and markings. Like the balloon and 



VEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



89 



Among the Icelanders the wolf-fish is so much esteemed that 



puffer fishes, to which it is nearly related, it has the power of swell- 
ing itself up w r ith wind, and thus floating about on the w r aves with- 
out the effort of swimming. 

The fierce-looking w T olf-fish inhabits the Northern Atlantic, and 
its appearance does not belie its character, which is savage, vora- 
cious, and ugly to a degree which makes it a dread of fishermen, who 
often get it in their nets. It grows to the length of four feet, and 
the slimy skin covered with tubercles, the gaping, powerful jaw^s, 
sharp teeth, give the fish a hideous appearance. It swims swiftly 
along the bottom, and its ferocity and ability to live a long time 
out of the water make it difficult to subdue when caught. In spite 
of the ugliness of appearance, the flesh is excellent, though few 
are able to overcome the repugnance caused by its forbidding as- 
pect 

it is salted for winter 
use. This fish lives on 
crabs, mollusks, and sea- 
urchins, and cracks the 
shells with its sharp 
teeth without difficulty. 

The " fishing frog," 
w T hose ungainly outline 
is singularly repulsive, 
belongs to the same fam- 
ily as the angler-fish, be- 
fore described, and is 
armed with the same ap- 
pendages growing out of 
the upper lip, wherewith 
it beguiles fish into its 

mouth while it lies in ambush in the mud. It is a slow, weak swim- 
mer, and nature has enabled it to make up in craft what it lacks in 
strength. But in boundless appetite it can compare with the hun- 
griest fish that swims in the seas. 

The stomias boa is a long serpent-shaped fish, and is found only 




FISHING FEO&. 



90 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



in the Mediterranean, though a fish of allied appearance and hab- 
its is a native of the Atlantic. In appearance it more nearly re- 




STOJIIAS BOA. 



sembles the serpent of the land than any other fish, its head, scales, 
and coloring making a very close analogy to the poisonous reptile,; 
though it is harmless in character so far as known. 




QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 91 

The tobacco-pipe fish, whose queer presentment is given in the 
illustration, is an inhabitant of American waters, and lives on crabs, 
mollusks, sea-worms, insects, and the roe of fishes. The male fish 
takes the young in a sort of pouch, which is contained by two soft 
flaps of the abdomen, and protects and feeds them while they are 
small. It is interesting to notice that, whenever among fishes un- 
usual attention is given to the young, this care is always bestowed 



BLIXD FISH OF HAilMOTH CAYE. 



by the male fish. A singular peculiarity of the pipe-fish is that the 
projecting eyes move independently of each other, and can be 
turned nearly half way around, enabling the fish to see behind as 
well as in front. 

Xot the least curious of fishes is the blind fish of the Mammoth 
Cave, Kentucky, found in that gloomy body of water, buried far 
beneath the earth, and called the Dead Sea, This fish has scales, 



92 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



but the embryonic eyes are not susceptible to light. Another 
variety of lish found in the same subterranean home has no place 
for the eyes whatever. These facts suggest that curious provision 
of Nature under which she never wastes her forces, but provides 
means only as there is an end to be attained. The waters of the 
Mammoth Cave, enveloped in Stygian darkness, offer no use of light 
for the fish that swim in these depths of gloom, and they are thus 
without the power, as they are without the necessity of light. 

It is in the electric fishes that the curious mind finds, perhaps, 
more to interest thought and investigation than in almost any of 
the finny inhabitants of the water. These strange creatures are 
not armed with spines, with sharp and dangerous teeth, with ten- 
tacles covered with blood-sucking disks, with sharp, sword-like 
snouts, nor with powerful tails that strike like thrashers' flails. 
They are armed with invisible lightning, and they stun their ene- 
mies or their prey with a discharge none the less certain in its 
effects because their medium is invisible. 

The most widely scattered of the electric fishes is the torpedo, 
which belongs to the rays or skates. The body is smooth and 
rounded, the tail short and thick, cylindrical at the end and keeled 




THE TORPEDO. 



on the sides. The torpedo, take it all in all, is an innocent-looking 
fish, and the quizzical expression of its face adds to the harmlessness 
of its aspect. But noli me tangere is the motto of the torpedo, and 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RfVER. 93 

woe be unto man or animal which ventures to trench on its dignity ! 
The electrical apparatus is arranged in two masses, one on each side 
of the skull. It is composed of a multitude of perpendicular col- 
umns, in the shape of eight-sided prisms, separated by walls of 
membrane containing a fluid freely supplied with blood, and laced 
with an immense number of nervous filaments. This apparatus is 
something like the galvanic pile. John Hunter counted twelve 
hundred columns in a very large fish, and about one hundred and 
fifty plates to the inch. In one specimen, Professor Wyman esti- 
mated the number of plates in an American torpedo, a species which 
sometimes reaches a length of four and one half feet, and a width 
of three feet, at the enormous number of three hundred thousand, 
the prisms being about two inches in height and containing one 
hundred plates to the inch. The intervals between the plates were 
filled with an albuminous fluid, mostly water, but containing salt in 
solution. In the torpedo the shock is most powerful when con- 
nection is made between the back and the abdomen. Actual con- 
tact with the fish, however, is not necessary, as it is well known 
by the Neapolitan fishermen that the shock is felt when the water 
is dashed on it, the electric current passing up along the stream, 
the circuit being completed through the earth to the stomach of 
the fish. That the discharge of this fish is the same as that of 
common electricity is shown by the fact that it renders the needle 
magnetic and decomposes chemical compounds, while by it heat is 
evolved and the electric spark obtained. The torpedo never uses 
its power for aggressive uses, as it is rather a timid fish ; but it 
makes itself dreaded by other fish, which soon learn to let this 
living electric battery alone. It lives on small fish, and keeps near 
the bottom, preferring a muddy bed to any other. There are about 
twenty species of the torpedo found in the different seas of the 
world. 

Another species of electric fish, the malapterurus, is found in the 
Nile, Senegal, and other rivers of Central Africa. The existence 
in the Nile of a fish with benumbing powers has been known for 
the last three hundred years, but it is only about a quarter of a 



94: THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

century since that it has been definitely known to science. The 
structure of the electric organs is very similar to that of the tor- 
pedo, though it is set further back in the body. The shock given 
by the malapterums is comparatively feeble, and is only felt when 
the head is touched. It is a shapely and beautifully spotted fish, 
and the Arabs, who call it raash (thunder), prize its flesh for food 
purposes. It reaches a length of not more than twenty inches, and 
is said to be a favorite tidbit for the crocodile, as well as for the 
stork and ibis, which do not seem to be disturbed by the thunder- 
bolts it carries. [ 

Another small electrical fish is found in the lagoons of the Pa- 
cific, growing to a length of seven or eight inches ; but its electric 
powers are quite feeble, though distinctly perceptible. All of the 
electric fishes have no scales or spines. It is the electric eel, the 
terrible and dreaded gymnotus of the South American rivers, which 
is the king of this kind of fishes. The discharge is so great that it 
is computed by Professor Faraday as equal to that of fifteen Ley- 
den jars of three thousand five hundred square inches surface. 

The gymnotus differs from other eels in the completeness of its 
jaws and the possession of ribs. The skin is smooth and scaleless, 
and the head flat and oval, like that of a venomous serpent. Though 
it has more than a hundred sharply pointed teeth in its jaws, it is 
not known that it bites, except for eating its food. Its one weapon 
of attack and defense suffices, and, though neither voracious nor 
fierce, it uses this against its numerous enemies with powerful 
results. The electric eel is mostly found in the northern rivers 
of South America, and is of a brown and yellowish color, grow- 
ing to a length sometimes of six feet. According to Humboldt, 
whose account has since been verified by that of other travelers, 
the Indians of South America capture these eels by driving herds 
of wild horses into the streams inhabited by them. The enraged 
eels, aroused by the trampling of the beasts in the muddy bottom 
where they live, expend their electric powers on the animals, and 
the Indians then wade into the river and spear the eels without 
risk or inconvenience. After some five or six discharges the gym- 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 95 




not us is exhausted, and needs a period of rest before he can again 
exercise his peculiar energy. 



96 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



The electric apparatus of this strange creature occupy a large 
portion of the length of the body, and are four in number, two on 
each side. They consist of an assemblage of membranous, horizontal 
plates, intersected by delicate vertical plates, and the cells thus 
formed are filled with a glutinous matter. Each inch in length of 
the gymnotus contains, according to Hunter, two hundred and forty 
cells. There is thus an enormous surface of the electric machinery. 
Curious to say, the electric eel seems to be a mere appendage to 
the battery for moving it about, as the other organs occupy but 
little space. This creatuire is rather sluggish in its movements, and 

is only dangerous when 
disturbed by interfer- 
ence. There are many 
amusing stories of per- 
sons, ignorant of the pe- 
culiar characteristics of 
the eel, attempting to 
grasp it. One, which re- 
cently passed the rounds 
of the papers, was of a 
self-sufficient negro fish- 
erman of Hilton Head, who boarded a sailing-vessel bound home 
from South America, with fish for sale. A good deal of chaff 
passed between the "darky" and the mate of the ship, and finally 
a bet was made that the gentleman of color, much as he knew 
about fishing, could not hold an eel which was kept in a tank on 
board. The tank was brought on deck, and the rash experimenter 
bared both arms and made a plunge for the eel. He finally suc- 
ceeded in getting one hand on the captive fish, and was chuckling 
over the prospect of winning five dollars as he seized the gymnotus 
by the tail with the other hand. The denouement was unexpected 
by the fisherman. He felt as if he had been struck by lightning, 
and gave a yell of dismay, for to his ignorant mind it was as if he 
had some demon in his grasp. Once again he tried, but the shock 
was so terrible that he leaped overboard. Professor Faraday, who 




ELECTRICAL EEL. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



97 




GREEN TURTLE. 



tirst made scientific experiments with the gymnotus, had many 
amusing scenes in his class, where various curious persons sought 
to test his facts and theories by taking hold of the eel which pre- 
sented so harmless an as- 



pect. 

There are several of 
the marine turtles which 
offer curious characteris- 
tics. These sea reptiles 
are the only represen- 
tatives of the giant tes- 
taceous creatures which 
swarmed in the seas of 
the Jurassic period, 
reaching a size which is almost incredible to the modern mind. 
All the marine turtles come on shore toward the end of spring 
to lay their eggs on the sandy beaches above high-water mark. 
They select desert islands or keys, on a still moonlight night, and 
dig a trench in the sand with their hind legs, about a foot and a 
half deep, in which they deposit about a hundred eggs at each of 
their layings, with an interval of two or three weeks between them. 
The eggs are lightly covered by sand, and are hatched out by the 
heat of the sun. If the turtles are undisturbed, they return to the 

same spot year after year. 
They are caught by the fish- 
ermen on the shore by being 
turned over on their backs, 
in which position they are 
helpless, owing to the flat- 
ness and width of the shell. 
They are also harpooned and 
taken in nets, and in the In- 
dian seas are captured by means of the sucking-fish, which, grow- 
ing to a considerable size and weight, embarrass their movements 
by clinging fast to their shells. 
1 




•BILL TURTLE. 



98 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

The hawk's-bill turtle is one of the most curious and valuable, 
though its flesh is not fit for food. It is from this variety that 
tortoise-shell jewelry is made. The plates of the shell are heart- 
shaped, pointing backward and overlapping each other, and are 
reduced by steaming and pressure, being so welded together that 
they appear to be homogeneous. The feet of the hawk's-bill turtle 
are so shaped that they are perfect oars, and it is often found hun- 
dreds of miles from land, as much at home in the vasty deep as the 
shark or the whale. No animal is valuable for its shell unless it 
weighs at least a hundred apd fifty pounds, as otherwise the shell is 
too thin. In ancient Rome the carapace of the hawk's-bill was used 
as a cradle and bath-tub for the children, and as a shield for warriors. 

The largest of the 
,-==. ^^^-^ ;Iii=^ — "*'■••-■"'. turtles is the trunk tur- 

tle, which reaches the 
length of eight feet and 
a weight of nearly a ton. 
The shell is used along 
the Mediterranean for 
making small boats and 
drinking troughs for ani- 
mals. 

TRUNK TURTLE. 

It is the green turtle, 
however, which is most widely known, as it furnishes a favorite 
article of food for epicures. Green turtle of six hundred pounds 
weight are not unfrequently found, and the catching of these highly- 
prized animals furnishes employment for thousands of men in the 
West Indies and the southern coasts of our own country. A favor- 
ite resort for this turtle is the Tortugas Islands, where they come 
ashore by the thousands during the breeding season, and this is the 
golden opportunity for the turtle catchers. They are kept in con- 
finement for months in pens or crawls to meet the demands of the 
market, and different flavors may be communicated to the flesh 
according to the food given them. Rarely is any epicurean dinner 
given without turtle served either in the shape of soup or cutlets 




QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 



99 




COMMON SEAL. 



as one of the principal dishes, and the demand for this animal from 
all the capitals of the civilized world is increasing every year. 

There are few if any animals which live in the seas more inter- 
esting than the family of 
seals, scientifically known 
as phocidce. They are 
widely spread through 
the colder regions of the 
ocean, both in the Arctic 
and Antarctic regions, 
and it is not uncommon 
to find them wandering 
on the coasts of temper- 
ate latitudes. Long before science and commerce lent their inter- 
ests to the seal, its exceeding intelligence and docility, as also the 
almost human interest of its face, gave it a high place in the folk- 
lore of the northern nations. Scotland and its adjacent islands and 
the Scandinavian peoples gave birth to many charming legends, 
based on the popular notion that seals could transform themselves 
at will into creatures of 
human shape and sympa- 
thies ; and that, by steal- 
ing the seal-skin which 
was doffed when these 
merry people of the sea 
gamboled on the beach 
at night, the cunning by- 
stander could secure the 
services of the despoiled 
one. Seal wives and seal 
servants play no unim- 
portant part in Scottish 

legend, and more than one noble family of northern Scotland traces 
its mythical descent from some beautiful sea-maiden, who had thus 
been robbed of her swimming robe and subdued to earthly conditions. 




GREENLAND SEAL. 



100 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



This quaint light of fancy long since passed away from the 
popular idea of the playful phoca, but the animal has become one 
of considerable interest on account of its value as a fur-bearing 
creature and its general characteristics. For the last ten years no 
fur has been in so much demand in the United States and Europe 
as the seal-skin, which is justly a great favorite on account of its 
beauty. The principal seal fisheries are on the North American 
coast from Newfoundland to Greenland, and that of Alaska, the 
latter country, since its accession to the United States, having fur- 
nished a large portion for Aperican use. Few animals are more 
tenacious of life, and great cruelties used to be employed in their 

capture. Now the larger 
ones are generally killed 
by a lance-thrust through 
j| the back, and the small- 
H er ones by a blow on the 
§§ nose with a long-handled 




HOODED SEAL. 



hammer. It is not un- 
common for one man, 
during the height of the 
seal-fishing season, to kill 
a hundred of these timid 
and inoffensive animals, 
though there are cases where they fight with great ferocity and 
imperil the lives of their captors. 

The Esquimaux hunt them in light boats with lances, or spear 
them at holes in the ice when they come up to breathe. To the 
resident of the Arctic regions the seal supplies food, oil for light 
and warmth, skins for clothing, boots, utensils, tents, boats, sinews 
for threads and lines, and membranes for under garments and win- 
dow covering. The oil, when fresh, is a not unpalatable food, and 
the seal is thus a creature indispensable to human life in the cold 
zone. To be successful as a seal hunter is the highest ambition 
and the most honorable distinction of the Esquimaux, and the rude 
songs of this people signalize the daring and craft of this hero of 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 101 





ESQUIMAUX SPEARING SEALS. 



102 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



the ice-floe and kayak, as other rude nations celebrate deeds of 
warrior enterprise. 

The seal is a mammal, bringing forth its young and nursing 
them with the most touching devotion. Gregarious and migratory, 
great herds of them travel from spot to spot in search of food, 
leaving the coldest regions in winter for milder waters. Fond of 
crawling out of water on rocks, beaches, and ice-floes, they keep a 
vigilant outlook for danger. Playful and gentle, they yet bite 
fiercely, and the wounds they make are not easily healed. This is 
specially so in breeding season, when the males have furious con- 
tests with one another, antagonists being sometimes killed in the 
fierceness of the duels. The seal has a cry which is like the snap- 
ping bark of a dog, and it can be heard at a great distance. Ex- 
pert divers and swimmers, they can remain under water at least 
twenty minutes, and the Esquimaux hunter who fails in his first 
lance thrust, when he huuts them in the open sea, has his pains for 
his trouble. The cunning seal when it rises from its dive may be 
two or three miles away. 

These animals are very docile and affectionate, and soon learn 

to have a great attach- 
ment to their keepers. 
Indeed, pet seals, which 
are as free of the house 
as dogs, are no uncom- 
mon accessories of cot- 
tage life on the coasts 
of Scotland and Norway. 
Those confined in zoo- 
logical gardens are often 
taught to sit erect, bow, 
kiss the hand, pretend to be asleep and snore, turn the crank of an 
organ, fire a gun, and even go through the manual of arms, shake 
hands, and perform other similar tricks. The story is told of a pet- 
seal belonging to a Scotch peasant which rescued two of its mas- 
ter's children from drowning on hearing their cries in the water. 




SOUTHERN SEA-LION. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 103 



The Newfoundland fisheries furnish about seven hundred thou- 
sand skins to commerce annually, while the Alaska product is only 
about one hundred thousand, though the fur of the latter is much 
more fine and valuable. The taking of fur seals in Alaska is 
mostly confined to the Pribyloff Islands, which lie just off the coast 
of North Alaska. The use of these great seal rookeries is farmed 
out to a corporation by the United States, and is regulated by act 
of Congress. 

The seal divides into a number of varieties, differing according 
to the seas where it lives. The common seal is noted for its finely 
shaped head, which con- 
tains as finely an organ- 
ized brain as that of the 
most intelligent monkeys. 
It is frequent in the Eu- 
ropean and American 
seas, and attains a size 
not greater than six feet 
in length. The Green- 
land or harp seal is some- 
what larger and differ- 
ent in color, the males 
being grayish-white, and 
the females brown with 

SEA-BEAR. 

black spots. They are 

mostly found off the coast of Greenland in herds floating on ice- 
floes, and rarely venturing near the shore. This is the most impor- 
tant of all to the Esquimaux, who harpoon it from their kayaks or 
pursue it on the ice. 

The leopard seal, or sea-leopard, grows to a length of ten feet, 
and is beautifully spotted. It frequents the frozen seas of the 
southern hemisphere about the South Shetland and South Orkney 
Islands, and is frequently the object of pursuit on the part of whal- 
ing crews, when they find their cetaceous prey scarce. The white- 
bellied or monk seal grows to about the same size and has a shining 




104 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

dark-brown fur. The eyes are large and ox-like, and it has a very 
intelligent and affectionate disposition. This seal is found in the 
Mediterranean, and was well known to the ancients. Its skin was 
believed by the Romans to be a preventive against lightning. 
The hooded or crested seal differs from all the others by a mem- 
branous hairy sac on the head. This can be inflated with air, and 
constitutes a reservoir, which enables the animal to remain under 
water a long time. It is the most fiercely pugnacious of all the 
seals, and is found on the ice islands of high northern latitudes, 
coming down sometimes to the coasts of Labrador. 

The bottle-nosed seal or sea-elephant deserves this appellation 
on account of its great size, as it frequently grows twenty-five feet 
long. It is nearly half as large as the Greenland whale, and very 
much larger than the largest elephant. The skin has very little 
fur value, but the animal supplies a great quantity of oil blubber 
which is equal to that of the whale in value. These creatures 
are found in large herds on the islands of the Antarctic seas, 
where they are hunted by whalemen with great profit. They 
have become comparatively scarce on account of the indiscrim- 
inate slaughter practiced on them. 

The family of eared seals differs from those just described, as 
is indicated by the title. The most common of these are known 
as sea-lions and sea-bears. The former name is given to species 
of seals in both hemispheres on account of their savage appear- 
ance, roaring voice, powerful canines, and maned neck, though 
these formidable externals are contradicted by timidity of nature. 
The ursine seal, or sea-bear, with a less ferocious aspect, has a 
far greater fierceness of disposition, and grows to about eight 
feet in length. This is the celebrated Alaska seal, from which 
the most valuable furs are obtained. The ears are nearly two 
inches in length, and the soft reddish wool under the long coarse 
hair is the beautiful fur so much in vogue in the fashionable 
world. 

The " rookeries " of the Pribyloff Islands contain several mil- 
lions of seals. The males begin to arrive about the 1st of May, 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 105 

and the females about the middle of June, giving birth to their 
young soon after landing. The bachelor seals, as those under six 
year olds are called, have separate haunts. Nearly, all leave the 
islands about the 1st of November, and the males do not go into 




WALRUS AND SEALS. 

1, Walrus ; 2, Sea-elephant : 3, Sea-leopard ; 4, Sea-lion. 



the water during the whole of this period from the time of landing, 
living by absorption of their own fat. They watch the young 
seals while the mother goes off to seek food to supply her needs 
during the prolonged period of lactation or nursing. Only the 
bachelor seals are allowed to be captured by law, though this is 
constantly violated by the fur -seekers. The capture of the seals 
for the market commences with their first landing on the islands, 
and ends with August, when the animals begin to shed their fur. 
The weapon of destruction used is a heavy iron-shod club, which 
obviates the necessity of cutting or tearing the fur. 

The walrus is a marine arctic animal somewhat resembling the 



106 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



large seals in appearance, yet differing from them in structure. 
The lips are covered with a thick mat of bristles, and from these 
project downward two long bulky tusks, which the sea-horse, as the 
walrus is often called, is capable of using with tremendous effect 
when battling for life against human or animal foes, though it is 
under ordinary conditions an inoffensive animal, in spite of its truc- 
ulent aspect. Walruses sometimes attain a length of twenty feet, 
and a circumference of half that length, weighing fully a ton. The 
walruses are rapid swimmers, but are very awkward on land, 
whither they go to rest, bring forth and suckle their young. Not 
afraid of man unless they are hunted, they bravely defend their 
young and their wounded companions. They often have furious 




YOUNG WALRUSES ASLEEP. 



combats with the polar bear on the ice, and with the narwhal and 
other carnivorous fishes in the water. Walrus meat is a favorite 
tidbit with the giant bear of the north, and he will travel many 
miles on the chance of making such a luxurious meal, in spite of 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 107 

the fact that he not unfrequently gets worsted in the battle. Large 
herds of the walrus will lie together in their resting-places like 
swine, and their loud roarings when disturbed can be heard for 
miles. The tusks, which furnish ivory of the finest quality, are 
used as weapons, for climbing on the ice, and for tearing up the 
sea plants on whose attached bivalves they largely feed. The cap- 
ture of the walrus is a dangerous sport, and not very remunerative 
except for food purposes, though the tusks are valuable. The 
Esquimaux are very fond of their flesh, and Dr. Kane and other 
Arctic voyagers have given testimony that it makes a toothsome 
and palatable dish, whether eaten raw or cooked, though it is 
doubtful whether the epicure of New York and Paris would alto- 
gether relish a dish made from this meat. 

The weapon with which the Esquimau hunter attacks the seal 
and walrus is to him what the rifle is to the American backwoods- 
man, the sword to the Agageer, the lasso to the South American, 
the sumpitem to the Dyak, or the boomerang to the Australian sav- 
age. It is a harpoon of ingenious make, with a Jong wooden shaft 
and a float attached to it. Owing to the great scarcity of wood, 
the Esquimau is obliged to fashion the shaft from a great number 
of pieces strongly lashed together. The head is made of walrus or 
narwhal ivory lashed with iron, and it is so contrived that it loos- 
ens from the shaft when the blow is struck. The long line of seal- 
skin is coiled around the hunter's neck, there often being several 
hundred feet of this seal rope looped and ready to play the quarry. 
To manage this line is a matter of great dexterity with the hunter, 
for, unless he casts it instantly free when the great walrus feels the 
quiver of the lance-head in his body, he would either be choked to 
death or dragged into the sea and drowned. There is also great 
need of keeping the coils from tangling, or the game would cer- 
tainly be lost. Extraordinary skill and promptness of movement are 
thus essential to walrus harpooning. Instantly the blow is struck, 
the hunter jerks the coils free of his neck, and then he is prepared 
to play the walrus like a salmon, till the exhausted beast can be 
brought near enough to receive the fatal thrust from a spear. 



108 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



There is also an ingenious way of conducting a battue, or whole- 
sale slaughter, which is not unfrequently used on occasion. The 




SPEARING THE WALRUS. 



Esquimaux hunters espy a number of animals sleeping on a sheet 
of ice, and, looking out themselves for a small ice fragment, they 
paddle their canoes to it, lift the canoes on it, and make their har- 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 109 

poon lines fast. They then gently paddle the whole raft of ice, 
men, boats, and all, to the drowsy animals, who do not suspect any- 
thing from a piece of floating ice. Each man selects his victim, 
and, at a given signal, all the harpoons are hurled. The herd 
instantly roll themselves into the sea, the wounded ones being 
attached to the ice raft, which they pull hither and thither till 
exhausted. Then the hunters launch their canoes and kill the 
walruses with the greatest ease. 

A denizen of the same seas as the seal and walrus, the sea-uni- 
corn, better known as the narwhal, from the Gothic, signifying 
"beaked whale," is no less interesting. The head of the narwhal 
is round and convex in front, the lower jaw being without teeth, 
while from the upper jaw springs the curious weapon which gives 
this animal its world-wide reputation. It is only in the male that 
this strange beak is developed, it being merely the development of 
the left tusk, which increases rapidly till it becomes a long, spiral, 
tapering rod of ivory, sometimes attaining the length of ten feet. 
Speculation as to the purpose of the narwhal's horn has been baffled, 
though that it is employed in some definite task is evident from 
the fact that the tip is always smooth and polished, however rough 
and encrusted it may be toward the base. It is probable that it is 
a weapon of attack, for narwhals have been often seen to joust and 
playfully charge each other, fencing with their long ivory lances 
as they churn up the sea in swift charges. So it is probable that 
the narwhal horn is analogous to the tusk of the boar and the horn 
of the deer. 

The ivory of the narwhal's horn is remarkably hard, solid, close 
in fiber ; perhaps a better article than the tusk of the walrus or the 
elephant. It has, therefore, a very considerable commercial value. 
In former times the entire tusk was believed to be of incalculable 
value. Supposed to be obtained from that fabled animal, the uni- 
corn, it had, it was imagined, magical qualities, among which was 
that of transforming the deadliest poisons into harmless potions. 

This antidotal quality was necessary to the unicorn, who was 
supposed to live in deserts among loathsome beasts and poisonous 



110 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. HI 



reptiles. When the unicorn went to the springs and pools which 
had been poisoned by the contact of other venomous mouths, the 
simple dipping of his horn in the water made it pure again. Thus, 
in those days when kings suspected poison in every wine chalice, 
the possession of this supposed unicorn's horn eased their royal 
minds not a little. 

The narwhal is held in great esteem in Greenland, for, inde- 
pendent of its value, it is a harbinger of the coming of the whale. 
The ivory of the tusk is put to a great variety of uses, and many a 
narwhal perishes by means of the tooth which has been extracted 
from some near kinsman. It is easily slain, as it possesses no great 
power of diving. It seldom descends over two hundred fathoms 
below the surface, and when it rises the animal is so tired as to be 
easily killed by a spear thrust. Whaling ships are always on the 
outlook for narwhals, on account of both the oil and the ivory, and 
lances are used to capture the playful animals, which seem to have 
but little fear, and gather around the fatal boats with great curios- 
ity. As they congregate 
in large herds, a very 
large catch is often a 
matter of only a few 
hours. 

The sea-cat is a fish 
of curious shape and 
appearance, and fiercely 
carnivorous. The relent- 
less ferocity with which 
it pursues shoals of her- 
rings, mangling thou- 
sands which it can not 

eat, has given the animal the name of the "king of the herrings" — 
a title partly owing, it may be also, to the fact that it has a fleshy 
protuberance, with serrated edges, somewhat resembling a crown, 
between the eyes. A conical snout, a long, shark-like body, green- 
ish eyes that shine at night like those of a cat, and two large, wing- 




NORTHERN SEA-CAT. 



112 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



like fins, give this fish a peculiarly repulsive and dangerous appear- 
ance, though it is not known that it ever attacks man. It is between 
the sturgeon and the shark in construction, and has all the rapacity 
of the latter fish. It is most commonly found in the colder waters 
of the ocean, though not infrequent in more temperate latitudes. 

There is no denizen of the sea more familiar to the popular 
mind, and yet more replete with the kind of interest which con- 
nects itself with horror and dread, than that tiger of the ocean, 
the shark. Purely carnivorous, the shark ranks in ferocity and 

powerful weapons of de- 

.'" ~ .7"" -i struction with the lion 

'i- Jjjt and tiger, the condor and 

~~ y ^-'3- the eagle, on the land ; 

^1 ri ^ _ and it may be doubted 

even whether the most 
formidable inhabitant of 
the earth or air is equal 
in offensive "weapons to 
this monster of the ocean 
world. Abounding in 
the waters of every zone, 
though less dangerous in 
the colder seas, the shark 
stands, perhaps, for the 
most striking animal type 
of what is fierce, crafty, relentless, and cruel. All the different va- 
rieties of sharks are noticeable for their elongated yet stout bodies, 
terminating in a powerful tail, which is the principal organ of lo- 
comotion, their large heads opening on the under side with a huge 
mouth, and their several rows of formidable cutting teeth. There 
are about a hundred species of sharks known, mostly in northern 
waters and the Eastern hemisphere, some being cosmopolite and 
others limited in their distribution. Of these, we shall only glance 
at two or three of the most prominent. 

The most terrible of the shark family is that known as the white 




WHITE SHARK. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 113 

shark, which sometimes reaches a length of thirty-five feet and a 
weight of two thousand pounds. The color is ashy brown above 
and whitish below, the head huge, the gape enormous, and the 
teeth form such a perfect cutting apparatus that the body of a man 
might easily be divided by a single snap of the mighty jaws. It 
has been seen near Calcutta to swallow a bullock's head, and horns 
attached, at one gulp. This is the true man-eater shark, about 
which so many stories have been circulated, and human remains have 
not infrequently been found in its stomach. Gluttonous, savage, 
and bold, no food comes amiss to its omnivorous maw. It is the 
terror of sailors, who lose no opportunity of fishing for it with a 
huge iron hook baited with a piece of pork. The white shark fre- 
quently follows a ship for days, feeding on the garbage thrown 
overboard ; and sailors have a superstitious fear, when they thus 
see the huge dorsal fin following the ship's wake. The adult shark 
has six rows of murderous teeth, and seizes everything which comes 
near him, but human flesh it loves with all the affection of the gour- 
mand. According to some writers, it even manifests a preference 
for some races — the white over the yellow races, and the latter over 
the blacks. Still, whatever the color, it seeks eagerly for human 
flesh, and haunts the neighborhood where it hopes to find the pre- 
cious morsel. 

The shark follows the ship in which its instinct tells it the 
morsel is to be found, and makes extraordinary efforts to reach 
it. It has been known to leap into a boat in order to seize the 
frightened fishermen ; it throws itself upon the ship, cleaving the 
waves at full speed, to snap up some unhappy sailor who has shown 
himself beyond the bulwarks. It followed the course of the slaver., 
watching for the horrors of the middle passage, ready to engulf the 
negroes' corpses as they were thrown into the sea. Commerson 
relates a significant fact bearing on the subject. The corpse of a 
negro had been suspended from a yard-arm twenty feet above the 
level of the sea. A shark was seen to make many efforts to reach 
the body, and it finally succeeded in seizing it, member after mem- 
ber, undisturbed by the cries of the horror-stricken crew assembled 



114: THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

on deck to witness the strange spectacle. In order that an animal 
so large and heavy should be able to throw itself to this height, the 
muscles of the tail and posterior parts of the body must have an 
astonishing power. 

The mouth of the shark being placed in the lower part of the 
head, it becomes necessary for it to turn itself round in the water 
before it can seize the object which is placed above. It meets 
with men bold enough to profit by this peculiarity, and chase it, 
formidable and ferocious though it is. On the African coast the 
negroes attack the shark in its own element, swimming toward 
him, and seizing the moment when it turns itself, to rip up its belly 
with a sharp knife. This act of courage and audacity can not, how- 
ever, be said to be shark-fishing. The fishing operation is conducted 
as follows : Choosing a dark night, the fisher prepares a hook by 
burying it in a piece of fat pork, and attaching it to a long and 
solid wire chain ; the shark looks askance at this prey, feels it, then 
leaves it ; tempted by withdrawing the bait, the shark follows, and 
swallows it gluttonously. It now tries to sink into the water, 
but, checked by the chain, it struggles and fights. By and by it 
gets exhausted, and the chain is drawn up in such a manner as to 
raise the head out of the water. Another cord is now thrown out, 
with a running knot or loop, in which the body of the shark is 
caught about the origin of the tail. Thus bound, the captured 
shark is soon hoisted on deck. On the quarter-deck of the ship it is 
put to death, not without great precaution, however, for it is still 
a formidable foe, from its terrible bites and from the still danger- 
ous blows of its tail. Moreover, it dies hard, and long resists the 
most formidable wounds. 

On the coast of Guinea the shark is worshiped as a god by the 
negroes, and its maw is considered the straightest way to paradise. 
Mothers at annual festivals throw their infants to these monsters, 
as the Hindoo mothers sacrifice theirs to the Ganges crocodile. 

But the shark, with all his ferocity, is not without some danger- 
ous foes. The enormous sperm whale, which makes effective war 
on the great squid, also attacks the shark successfully, and never 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 115 




CAPTURING A SHARK. 



hesitates to take some risk to secure a banquet of shark-meat. The 
great number of small sharks devoured by the sperm whale, whose 
jaws are sometimes twenty-five feet long, makes the huge cetacean 



116 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



a blessing to the seas, as the warfare reduces the number of this 
marine scourge. The fins of the shark make a favorite Chinese 
delicacy, for which the gourmets of the Celestial land pay high 
prices. 

Passing over the small sharks or dogfish found in large num- 
bers on the North Atlantic coast, which rarely grow more than five 
or six feet long, the mackerel shark, of somewhat larger size, also 
common in our waters, which is a scourge to the mackerel- and 
cod -fishermen, the great basking shark of the northern seas, which 
sometimes attains a length of fifty feet, but which, though the 
largest, is the least ferocious of its family, and the other varieties 
known in different parts of the ocean world, let us come to the most 
curious of the shark race, the dreaded hammer-headed shark. 

The distinctive peculiarity of this fish is the singular shape of 

the head. It is flat- 
tened horizontally, and 
the sides are prolonged 
transversely, giving it 
the appearance of the 
head of a hammer. The 
eyes are placed at the 
extremity of these pro- 
longations, and when the 
animal is at all irritated 
they become like flame. 
The semicircular mouth, 
which is underneath, is 
armed with four rows 
of teeth, and the body 
reaches the length of 
eleven or twelve feet. Its boldness, voracity, and craving for blood 
are more remarkable than its size. If the hammer-head has not 
the strength and size of the white shark, it even surpasses it in 
fury, and can not be easily driven from its prey. It frequently 
haunts the vicinity of ships lying in roadsteads or off the coast, and 




HAMMER-HEADED SHARK. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. H7 




COMMON SAWFISH. 



there is none of the shark race more hated and dreaded by Jack 
Tar than this ferocious and monstrous-shaped animal. 

Nearly related to the shark is the sawfish, easily distinguished 
from all others by the formidable weapon which grows out of its 
snout, consisting of a long, straight, sword-like bone, flat on both 
sides but armed on the edges with strong teeth of considerable 
length. Thus armed, the 
sawfish, which is often ^. v. 
fifteen feet long, attacks V^g^ 

the most formidable in- 
habitants of the sea, 
measuring its strength 

even with the whale, and generally winning the victory. Another 
desperate enemy of the giant of the seas is the swordfish, which 
carries a sharp spear from six to eight feet long growing out of 
the head. It darts with indescribable fury on all large moving 
objects, and seems to be animated by a pure love of destruction. 
The timbers of ships are often perforated by the swordfish. Some 
years ago a ship came home from the tropical seas, was placed in 
the dry dock, and the carpenters found the sword of a swordfish 
which had penetrated through the metal sheathing deep into the 
solid oak. To drive a pointed iron bolt so far would have taken 
many blows of a thirty-pound hammer. The swordfish attacks all 

other fish, and is the Ish- 
maelite of the ocean. The 
flesh of both the sawfish 
and swordfish, when young, 
is white, delicate, and of 
excellent flavor, and the 
fishery in the Mediterra- 
nean is actively pursued to supply the markets. The swordfish has 
frequently been caught twenty feet in length, and its swimming 
speed is said to reach the fearful velocity of a mile a minute. It is 
this charging speed which gives its sharp lance such terrible force. 
By far the largest known inhabitant of the ocean world is the 




COMMON SWORDFISH. 



118 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 



whale, which, on account of its fish-like shape, is usually thought 
of as belonging to the fish creation. But the whale (including un- 
der this name the baleen, or right whale, the sperm whale, and the 
dolphin family, which covers the porpoise, grampus, and narwhal) 
is a carnivorous mammal, which has warm blood, and brings forth 
and suckles its young as much as the cow or the sheep. The right 
and the sperm whale both attain an enormous size, a length of sev- 
enty-five feet being by no means uncommon. 

Before the discovery of mineral oil, the whale fisheries were so 
actively carried on from England and America that the extirpa- 
tion of this great creature was threatened. About the year 1854 
there were nearly seven hundred vessels which plowed the seas in 
every direction, from the frozen zones to the warm waters of the 
Pacific, engaged in hunting this huge game, and the product of a 
single year reached nearly half a million barrels of oil. Now that 
the demand for whale oil has so far decreased, the whale, which is 
far less hunted, has increased again and will probably soon reach its 
former standard of numbers. 

The head of the whale constitutes about one third of its length, 
and it is from this part that the blubber is extracted. The mouth 

is of enormous width, 
and the jaws are armed 
with plates of whale- 
bone, as in the case of 
the right whale, or with 
sharp conical teeth, as in 
the case of the seprm 
whale, which is mostly 
found in the tropical or 
semi-tropical waters of 
the Pacific. The pres- 
ence of the whale is generally made known, even when the animal 
is under water, by the blowing of huge jets of water in the air. 
This is caused by the expulsion of the volume of water, which the 
whale takes in in swallowing its food, through the blow-holes in the 




RIGHT WHALE. 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 119 




SPEE1I WHALE. 



top of the head, and has nothing to do with the proper function of 
breathing, as has been sometimes supposed. It is from the baleen, 
or right whale, mostly found in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, 
that the whalebone is de- 
rived ; this network of V — ... 1 
elastic material acting as 
a strainer for its food, 
which consists of small 
swimming mollusks and 
fish. Though the cavity 
of the mouth is large 
enough to take in a ship's 
long-boat, the gullet is 
not larger than a man's 
fist, and can not pass 
anything much larger 

than a herring. The Greenland whale, which is the largest of the 
baleens, has a tail about six feet long and twenty-five feet wide. 
This is the animal's weapon, and it is used with terrible effect, fre- 
quently crushing a whaleboat like an egg-shell. This whale swims 
ordinarily just below the surface at the speed of about five miles 
an hour, though capable of far greater velocity. Often they throw 
themselves entirely out of water in sport, and one of their playful 
tricks is to immerse the body perpendicularly, flapping the tail on 
the water and making a noise perceptible for several miles. 

This animal can remain in the ocean depths for half an hour, 
and when it comes to the surface it stays several minutes blowing 
off the water. This is the time utilized by the whale-hunters, 
whose knowledge of the creature's habits enables them to calculate 
the time and place of his appearance very closely. All whales 
show an extreme tenderness for their young, and during nursing 
roll gently from side to side, so that each of the offspring may 
have time to breathe. The southern variety of the right whale 
does not quite reach the size of its Arctic cousin. 

In the sperm whale we find, instead of the whalebone plates, 



120 THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 

a large number of sharp conical teeth in the lower jaw which fit 
into cavities in the upper jaw. The spermaceti, which is the most 
valuable find of the whale-fisher, is an oily fluid contained in the 
enormous head, and on exposure to the air it instantly hardens. 
In addition to the spermaceti, and the oil, which often amounts to 
eighty barrels in a single take, this whale yields the ambergris, a 
peculiar product of the bowels, which is in so much demand by the 
perfumers. 

The sperm-whale fishery is far more dangerous than that of the 
right whale. The sperm whale is not only armed with an enor- 
mous tail, the stroke of which has the force of a Nasmyth hammer, 
but its formidable jaws are supplied with sharp teeth, with which 
it literally chews a boat into splinters. A whole shoal will some- 
times come to the rescue of a wounded companion, and then woe 
betide the unlucky whalemen in such an unequal fight, for flight 
is useless before the rush of these enraged monsters of the deep. 

The accidents of the sperm-whale fishery furnish a gloomy 
record, and there are well authenticated cases of ships having 
sprung a leak and suffered wreck from the headlong charge of the 
sperm whale against its sides. Herman Melville's fascinating sea- 
story of " Moby Dick " is based on a sailor's legend of a gigantic 
sperm whale which had long defied capture, and become a sort of 
conscious and deliberate avenger of the destruction inflicted on its 
kind. 

The sperm whale is distributed through all the seas, but his 
home is principally in the South Pacific. Schools of them, con- 
sisting of from twenty to fifty females and their young, with one 
or two old males or bulls, are common. The males during the 
time of breeding fight savagely, as their broken and distorted jaws 
frequently testify. They find their choicest food in the huge 
squids which abound in the southern seas, and bite off the head as 
the choice morsel. They also attack large sharks without fear, and 
by their courage as well as their vast size justify their right to be 
called the kings of the ocean. In the times when whale-fishing 
was such an important industry, only the largest and most heavily 



QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 121 

manned ships were sent in pursuit of the sperm whale, for its cap- 
ture was justly recognized as the most dangerous and difficult of 
seafaring trades, as indeed it was also the most remunerative. 
Whale-fishing has been so often described that it is scarcely worth 
while to repeat the familiar story, except very briefly. 

Instantly the lookout sings " There she blows ! " the crews rush 
to the boats, which are promptly lowered, each man taking his 
place with the regularity of machinery. The boat-steerer, who is 
also the harpooner, sits in the stern with bis trusty weapon in hand, 
the fathoms of line attached to it coiled away in a tub at his feet. 
On approaching the whale he rises, and, seizing the coil in his left, 
hurls the harpoon with his right hand at the most vulnerable part 
of the huge animal. Away the line goes like lightning as the 
stricken whale dives into the depths, and so swift is the paying out 
of it that water has to be poured on to keep it from setting the 
boat on fire. More than once a sailor's leg, caught in the whizzing 
coil, has been cut off as with a cleaver. 

When the whale rises again, comes the time of special danger. 
The harpooner again hurls the sharp steel, and the infuriated whale, 
with blows of the terrible tail or snaps of the no less terrible jaws, 
seeks to destroy its human foes. Unless the order " Stern all ! " is 
instantly obeyed by backing the boat out of near vicinity when the 
harpooner makes his throw, the crew find themselves in the water, 
some of them perhaps crushed or mangled to death. Oftentimes 
the whale descends several hundred fathoms, and remains under 
water half an hour. The signal of victory is when the huge crea- 
ture begins to spout great jets of blood or bloody foam. The 
whaleman then knows that the death agony is not far off, and puts 
an end to the struggle by a thrust of the keen, slender lance in a 
vital part. In addition to harpoon and lance, the harpoon-gun is 
sometimes employed, this weapon being used from a greater dis- 
tance. There is still another weapon, more deadly than the others, 
the bomb-gun. The projectile in this case is so contrived that it 
explodes inside the doomed whale. A few seconds after it is 
discharged, a dull, rumbling sound is heard, the whale makes a 



122 



THE WONDERS OF MARINE LIFE. 




QUEER WANDERERS OF OCEAN AND RIVER. 123 

convulsive somersault, oftentimes entirely out of the water, and 
frequently dies almost instantaneously. The whale is often lost to 
its captors by sinking in its last agonies. If not, the body is towed 
to the side of the ship, and the disgusting work of butchering the 
animal, cutting out its blubber, and trying out the oil begins. One 
whale is generally thus disposed of before another attack is made, 
though there may be large numbers in daily view. 

Closely allied to the whale, though presenting some important 
differences of structure, is the manatee, also known as the lamantin 
or sea-cow. The manatee inhabits the sea-shore close to the mouths 




MANATEE. 



of rivers and the rivers themselves, feeding on algae and aquatic 
plants. When it is seen supporting itself in a semi-erect position 
in the shallows, it presents, in the distance, something of a human 
appearance, the resemblance being heightened by the distinct lips, 
the long whiskers in the male, and the well-formed, rounded breasts 
of the female. The largest known is that which frequents the 
rivers and coast regions of Florida and other regions on the Gulf 
of Mexico and the West Indies. It here reaches a length of from 
twelve to fifteen feet. Harmless and gentle even when attacked, 
the manatees are seen generally in small groups, associated for the 



12 1 



THE WONDERS 01 MARINE LIFE, 



defense of their young. The South American manatee, which is 
not quite so large, is not uncommon in the great rivers of Bra- 
zil and Guiana, ascending several hundred miles in these streams, 

and living even in small 
Afc ^g$&%$$EBB&&g£bb^ fresh- water lakes. Easi- 

ly captured, the flesh is 
good and wholesome, 
and, as it is considered 
by the Roman Church 
as fish, it is in great de- 
mand during Lent in 
these countries. 

Though the mana- 
tees are tropical, they 
are not found in the 
dtjgong. Pacific or Indian Ocean, 

their place being caken 
by a similar animal called the dugong, which is still more like the 
whale in many particulars, especially in the shape of its tail, which 
divides into large flukes. The dugong browses like a cow on the 
marine vegetation, and the Malays value its flesh very highly. It 
is generally speared at night, when the timid animal is feeding in 
the shallows of rivers, or in the sea disporting itself near the shore. 




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FLOWERS AND THEIR PEDIGREES. By Grant Allen, author of 
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